From Fred to Fred

Disclaimer: I am not, nor do I think I am, JK Rowling. I do not own the Harry Potter Franchise. Unfortunately.
AN: Hope you enjoy. Please, review.

The sound of the huge explosion tore through the night, and debris rained upon my head. Pushing it off, I felt around for my brothers -any of them- and found something that might have been an arm, but wasn't moving. In terror, I pushed off the remaining bits of corridor, and let out a piteous wail of despair. For there, lying upon the floor, blood trickling down the side of his face, was the lifeless body of my brother.
'No-no-no!' I could hear a familiar voice shouting, and realised with a start it was my own, though I could not feel my mouth moving. 'No! Fred! No!' Once again, sound passed through my lips without me even noticing. How could I notice, when Fred, my brother, my twin, my other half, lay dead upon the floor.

'Oi Dad,' a voice woke me from my daydream. I opened my eyes to see a pair of almost identical orbs gazing unblinkingly back. I sighed, privately thankful that my wartime reverie had been disturbed. I nodded, showing my son that he had my full attention.

'Right, well, I er, wanted to ask you something. See, the thing is, I, um, wanted to know, er, how things, ah, work, as such. If you get my drift...' stammered the thirteen year old.

I didn't get his drift, as I was still trying to get my head around the amount of dithering that had overtaken much of the dialogue. He seemed to sense my confusion, and gave a groan of frustration, followed by an impressive string of obscenities. To his credit though, they were barely audible, not to mention highly imaginative.

'What I was trying to say was, to use the very overworked phrase...' He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. 'Wheredobabiescomefrom?'

Sure, the sentence was slightly garbled, but I got the gist of it, and, oh, how I wished I didn't. The feeling that came after hearing those horrible words was a sinking feeling deep in my gut of petrifying dread that coursed through my entire body. Close on its tail was the memory of when my father had given me my own talk.

He came into our room, wringing his hands and sweating profusely.

'Boys, your mother and I think that you're old enough now to learn about...' He cleared his throat. '...the birds and the bees.'

Fred and I just looked at each other, before breaking into what, to the outsider, might have seemed like a well rehearsed duet.

'You mean,' Fred started.

'Polishing the wand?'

'Tab A into slot B?'

'Standing to attention?'

'Swimmers and eggs?' We moved off the bed where we had been playing Exploding
Snap, and began to strike dramatic poses at the end of each statement.

'Realising girls aren't icky?'

'Not to mention dangerous to our health.' We both nodded solemnly at this one, having once been firm believers of the dreaded cootie.

'Growth spurts?'

'Other spurts?'

'Hygiene?' Fred gave me a funny look. I hastily replied with 'What! You have to keep everything clean!'

'Okay then. Erm, pimples?'

'Hair?'

'A difficult stage in life -'

'Where your emotions may threaten to overcome you -'

'And you don't know what's happening to your body -'

'But don't worry -'

'It's all just a part of -'

'Growing up -'

'And everybody -'

'Goes through it.' We bowed to imagined applause, and took our seats on the bed once more.

Dad's expression was a mixture of overwhelmed, amused, mildly frightened and relieved that he wouldn't have to go into details. Fred gave a sudden high-pitched yelp. The snap card he just sat on had exploded.

'Basically, yes,' he said, eying Fred's smouldering buttock with concern. 'Seeing as you both seem to know so much, I'll just say, make sure she - or he for that matter - really means something to you. And use protection.'

We grinned at each other -showing a slight amount of alarm at the he comment - and Dad hurried out of the room. He stopped at the doorway to take a quick glance back at Fred's still smoking rear end, and set off down the stairs, presumably to get a bit of medicinal firewhiskey.

Once again, I was shaken from my memories by my impatiently shuffling son. I had never imagined giving the Talk (that's with capitals, mind!) to my kids without...Fred. I had never even dreamed that the mother would be Angie of all people, seeing as she had always been Fred's girl. But reality was, Fred was gone, and now his namesake (who looked so like the both of us), was the one hurrumphing a trifle rudely in front of me. The only way I could think of getting through this, was to take a deep breath, and channel my inner Fred. So that was what I did.

'Alright alright, hold your bloody Hippogriffs! A baby is made when a boy and a girl are reasonably attracted to one another and either forget or purposely don't use protection. Muggles have a really complicated way of doing things if you can't have a kid but really want to as well.' Although pleased with myself for remembering this titbit of information from one of Hermione's long rants about muggles, Fred, it seemed, was not satisfied.

'Well, yeah, I know that. Er, except for the muggle thing, that is. I just asked that question to - you know - get your attention. What I want to know is what to do. What gets a bird going? I know what I can do. In fact,' he sniggered, 'I guess you could say I'm in an intimate relationship with myself. I just want to know how to...perform... when I'm with a girl.' He trailed off, looking embarrassed.

Well, that's good. It really shows the depth of a father-son relationship when you can talk to each other about rubbing your broomstick. Anyway, he doesn't want clinical facts or emotional support about his changing body. He wants sordid details! Perfect. After all, Fred and I (that's my brother, not my son) used to have a large collection of...ahem...informative magazines. Alright, they were Playwizard, but the point is, I'm very good at retaining information, and we paid a lot of attention to those magazines.

I turned back to my son and smiled. His eyes shone hopefully as I spoke.

'Well, where to begin, eh. Let's see then, a girl has these bits...'

Fred II POV

I still can't believe it. Dad just gave me the Talk, but it was unlike anything I had ever expected. Admittedly, I did ask him for it, but still, I think I was the best conversation I've ever had with him. According to most of my Hogwarts sources -and Teddy Lupin, who got it from Uncle Harry, poor bloke- it was meant to be the most horrifying, awkward experience of your life. Dads -and godfathers- were meant to stumble through a speech peppered with either proper medical names for everything, or euphemisms, or both. But my dad just came out and said everything, including some weird thing about muggles. This was only after he had that far-off look in his eye that he gets when he's thinking about his dead twin. Then, he ran upstairs and comes back with a huge box of dirty magazines. Sure, they were sort of mouldy, but the pictures moved. Besides, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

I did manage to make him completely lose the ability to speak once, at the very end of our talk. It was when I asked him how he planned to give the Talk to Roxy, and he completely froze up and made funny gagging noises in the back of his throat.

George POV

Oh Merlin. Oh Merlin's dirty underpants. How in the name of Merlin's sodding socks am I meant to give the Talk to Roxy? No, I won't give it to her. I'll keep her from boys until she's thirty. But then she'd murder me, and Angie would help. Angie. I'll get Angie to do it! Yes, I'll go ask her now.