A/N: I never wrote anything like this before, I'm not even sure how I came up with idea for this, but I did. I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think. It was a real adventure to write, but loads of fun.

Around the time I had started writing this, I had been listening to Inkspell audiobook, so that probably has some influence into how this ended up the way it did. Also, I'm fairly certain that there is a little of Paint Your Wagon in here too. Don't worry if you don't know what those are, they have no real importance to the plot.

I would like to thank hannah askance andYellowtail555 for beta'ing this for me.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I might have created the idea for the pairing, but there is so much Harry Potter fanfiction out there that it is doubtful.

George Weasley had a secret. He couldn't tell it to anyone, because he knew his brothers would kill him, not to mention his sister. It had happened back in his sixth year. There were only two other people who knew of it that weren't a part of it: Oliver Wood and Padma Wood née Patil. Not even Fred had known; they only knew because they had found him completely drunk one evening and he had blurted out the whole thing. He remembered it like it was yesterday. Well, most of it.

It was Thursday night. Business had been slow that day, being that it was September 2nd, and right after the mad back-to-school rush: there weren't even many owl orders for him to fill. He had decided that it was the best time for him to go out, something he rarely did since Fred had died. He needed it; tonight was the anniversary of the last time he had seen her. It had been four years since the that night.

He shook his head; no, he couldn't think of it. It hurt too much. All he wanted to do was forget about it, forget about everything, even if it was only for a moment, and there was only one way for him to do that.

He could hide it, for the most part. That was why no one knew about it. It was only on this day, this night, that it broke out of his cage he had put it in.

'Stop,' he told himself for the millionth time. 'Stop thinking of it, of her. You know that it doesn't fix anything, it only makes everything so much worse.' But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop, and he knew it.

He entered the bar that he usually went to whenever he decided to go out, and sat at the table hidden away in the corner that was only ever used by poor blokes that wanted to drown their woes away. He made a deal with the barkeeper to always keep it open for him on this night.

Lavender Krum was always willing to do him favors in exchange for free gifts for her children. She had five of them. Who would have thought that the gossipy Lavender Brown would have started a bar and would have become a loving mother? He remembered her school years. She wouldn't keep quiet about anything. The moment she learned something, it was all over the school in what seemed like seconds. She would never be one that you would go to tell a secret to, or expect not to ask questions. Now, ever since she had been attacked by Fenrir Greyback, it was hard to find someone more willing to listen when you needed someone to talk to, or more adamant about not prying into other people's business. Perhaps that was why Viktor Krum, the once world-famous Quidditch star, had fallen in love with her.

It seemed as though everyone had found someone. Even Percy with his Audrey, and Charlie with Romilda Vane of all people. The ones who surprised him the most were Harry and Ginny, though. Yes, they had gotten back together, but they had brought an addition of one Luna Lovegood with them. He was still puzzling over that change six years later. Less surprising developments were Ron and Hermione's announcement of their engagement, and the fact that they were still engaged three years later. He didn't think that they would get married until they were expecting their first child.

He was the only member of the Weasley family to not have found someone yet. No, he did find someone, it was just that he lost her and no one knew about it.

Lavender came to the bar and smiled at him kindly. The scars on her neck and face took some getting used to, but they didn't detract from her beauty, only enhanced it in a rather unusual way. "The usual?"

He nodded in reply.

He stayed there well into the night. He was still there at two in the morning, when Oliver Wood and his wife, Padma, came into the bar. They were regulars there, just as he was. Padma and Lavender had formed a friendship over the death of their sister and best friend respectively.

Padma immediately headed over to Lavender at the bar, Oliver following her, slightly reluctantly.

George felt a pang of longing, wishing that he had her with him to keep him company. Not even that; he wanted to just see her again. He didn't understand how everything had happened so fast. One moment they were teens, the next they were sitting together and confessing their love, and then she was gone.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice calling his name. He looked up, confused. Oliver and Padma were standing over him, looking down at him with worry on their faces.

"George?"

"Wha?" He was too drunk to think of more to say.

"You look terrible, mate," said Oliver, a frown on his face. "How long have you been here?"

He shrugged. It wasn't something he had paid attention to.

"Why don't you come home with us?" asked Padma kindly. "You need rest."

George shook his head. It made him feel dizzy. "No, not yet."

Oliver and Padma exchanged glances before sitting down beside him, one on each side. "Do you want to talk about it?"

No, he didn't, was what he opened his mouth to say, but he was too far gone and he had buried it too deep without letting it out that he spilled the whole story to them. "Well, you see, it all started in my fifth year, with a girl named Pansy Parkinson..."

One of the few times that he and Fred weren't around each other, George had decided to spend some time on the Astronomy Tower. Fred was off on a date with Angelina — not that either of them were calling it that, but George knew better. He had decided that he was going to take advantage of his time alone and do something that he wouldn't normally do with Fred: absolutely nothing. When he and Fred were together, they were always doing something, always planning something. Right now, George just wanted to spend some time relaxing.

He had never made it to the Astronomy Tower that night — the sound of a girl's crying had distracted him. He followed it until he found the source. She was dark-haired, and he saw from her robes that she was Slytherin. He almost left, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't like seeing any girl cry, a fact that Ginny knew and utilized quite regularly, so he knelt down beside her. "Alright there?"

The girl jumped and spun around to face him. He vaguely recognized her as a Slytherin in Ron's year, one that they didn't get along with. She tried to hide the fact that she had been crying. "What do you want?"

George sighed. Apparently Gryffindors could do no right when it came to a Slytherin. "I was just trying to help, but seeing as you don't want me to, I'll go."

As he started to walk away, he felt her hand grab his robes. "No, don't go, I don't want to be alone."

He nodded and sat beside her. She latched on to him, as if she was afraid that he would leave her if she let go, and her crying began anew. After a few minutes, she finally calmed down to point where she was merely hiccupping, and he felt that it was safe to breach the subject again.

"So, are you ever going to explain to me what's wrong? You owe it to me after using me as a hanky, at least."

She giggled at that before turning gloomy again. "It's my parents. They said that...that..." She couldn't say it. Instead she handed him a letter. He took it and quickly read it through.

"Pansy?" he asked, testing her name. She nodded in reply. "Don't worry, I'll help you."

They had formed a friendship, but it had to be kept secret because no one would accept it — least of all, her parents. George hadn't even told Fred, too afraid of what his brother would think of him. He had taken to spending time with Pansy when Fred was off with his girlfriend as it was really his only chance to get away without notice. Pansy was free to do as she wished, seeing as no one in Slytherin house actually cared about her or what she did. She had no real friends besides him.

Over the years, their friendship only grew. They didn't really want to make it anything more too afraid that if they became more they would be caught and pulled apart, so they made do with what they had. Then George had left the school with his twin, and they exchanged secret letters. They had to stop when the war started getting bad, but they had thought about each other every day. The distance did nothing to decrease their feelings for one another, only survived to increase them and the longing to be back together.

The next chance that they had to be alone together was in the chaos after the final battle.

"George," cried Pansy, throwing herself into his arms, and with a practiced ease. Tears of happiness and pain flooding from her eyes. She looked as though she couldn't decide if she should cry out in joy, or scream in hatred of herself for everything that her parents made her do.

George decided that his best bet was to take the choice out of her hands. He kissed her. It was their very first kiss, and it felt absolutely perfect. All the pain and hurt that they had suffered during the war didn't matter. It didn't matter that Fred was dead, despite the gaping hole that was in George's chest. It didn't matter that Pansy had been forced to be a person that she wasn't, a person that betrayed herself by her parents' instruction. It didn't matter that she was now free of that burden forever, now that her parents had been killed in the fighting. It didn't matter that they would still be unable to tell anyone. The only thing that mattered was that they were alive, together, finally able to be what they wanted. They would be able to work through everything together.

Then Pansy pulled back, stared into his eyes, and said only one word. "Please?"

Four more years they spent hiding their relationship as it continued to grow, but it was so much easier than their school years. Pansy had gotten a job working as a clerk at Weasleys ' Wizarding Wheezes. Most everyone ignored her, but she got by. It had done a great deal to simplify things for them, as it let them spend as much time together as they pleased.

On the second of September, five years after their first kiss, George decided on a life-altering decision for the both of them. He was going to propose. Nine years after he met her, he knew that this was the best chance for him to do it. He also had a feeling that if he didn't do it now, that he never would be able to.

He had closed the shop for the day. It wasn't like they were going to have much business, anyway. Plus, it would give him plenty of opportunity to set up for the night. He had actually bought the ring two years ago, and had only been waiting for the perfect chance to give it to her. Tonight, everything would be perfect.

Pansy entered their apartment, having been out shopping all day, and gasped. It was amazing — nothing too romantic, because she didn't really like that. No, it was decked out in a simple white. Her favorite color, because it represented everything that she wanted her parents wouldn't let her have. Alone in the center of the room was a candlelit two-person table, covered with a white tablecloth. There was some Celtic music playing in the background. And on her side of the table was a single red rose.

George knew immediately that she loved all of it, and it made his heart soar with joy. When she took her seat, he moved aside and knelt on the floor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. The words slipped off his tongue as though it was the easiest thing in his life.

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes, oh, yes," she cried and flung her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Once she had kissed him to her heart's content, she pulled back and offered her left hand to him. Smiling widely, and feeling the happiest he had ever had, he slipped the ring onto her finger.

"It was later that night when it happened," George told Oliver and Padma, who had been listening intently to his story. "We had been working on testing some new pranks for the shop. It was one of our favorite hobbies. Then one of the experiments went wrong." He choked up at this point and couldn't speak for a few moments. "And she...And she...she was go-g-gone." He broke down sobbing at that. More words went through his mind that fit, vanished, disappeared, lost.

"I'm so sorry," said Padma. She started rubbing his back, and looked at her husband with a question in her eyes. He nodded in reply.

"Come on, George," said Oliver, standing up as he helped George up too. "We're taking you back to our place, you're in no state to be on your own."

George simply nodded in reply.

Now, three years later to the date, George found himself staring guiltily at the very same experiment that had gone wrong seven years prior. He just wanted to be with his fiancée again, even though he knew that his family would be heartbroken and miss him terribly. He couldn't help it — he had lived for seven years more, seven years that should have been his with his wife. He could have been a father. He could have had everything he had ever wanted if only she hadn't ever been taken away from him. Perhaps he would have been able to finally tell his family. He didn't know, but one thing that he was sure of was that if there ever came a time where he had to choose between her and his family, he would pick her.

The only thing that Padma and Oliver did not know was that he had been trying to recreate the experiment that had taken her away in hopes that he would be able to follow her. He worked on it every single day that he could, and finally he was certain that he had found it.

Everything was set up exactly the same as it had been that night. The only differences was that she was not there and he was in the same position as she had been. The clock slowly ticked away as he waited, feeling as if years had past instead of minutes.

He started to get anxious. 'What if it doesn't work?' 'What if I have to start over?' 'What if...?' So many questions and 'what ifs' kept floating through his mind. He was about to give up when something happened. The world had started to spin, before everything went black.

When George awoke he was confused. Everything around him blurred into green and brown, with the odd color here and there. He winced when he moved. His head was pounding like crazy. 'What the bloody hell happened?' Even his stomach was queasy. It took a moment to realize that his left leg was broken, and he was laying in a pool of something wet. That was when the smell of blood reached his nose. 'I guess this means I'm not dead.' He could feel himself slipping back into the black oblivion, and before he knew it, he had drifted off again.

The next time he woke, he felt too heavy to even lift an eyelid, but he noticed that his pain was gone and he could hear voices. Young voices, the sound of children.

"Who do you think he is?"

"I don't know, but mum..."

He knew he was drifting off again, he tried to force himself to stay awake. To understand what was going on, what they were talking about, but he couldn't.

"Children...what did I say..."

"Bu..."

He awoke and drifted off several more times before he was finally able to open his eyes and could actually feel his body. He was stiff, extremely stiff. He tried to stretch but his muscles started to ache as if they hadn't been used in years.

"Don't move just yet," came a voice from somewhere in the room.

He slowly turned his head and looked blearily at the man who had spoken. He wasn't anyone George recognized. He was tall, rather handsome with his dark hair and dark blue eyes.

"You have been unconscious for two years," said the man.

"Two years!" exclaimed George, eyes wide. 'So long? How is it possible? What happened?'

The man simply nodded in reply. For a few short minutes he watched George in a thoughtful silence. Eventually, he seemed to come to some kind of conclusion. "You're from where she is, aren't you? That's what she had told me."

"Who? What?" asked George. He had no idea what the man was talking about.

The man just chuckled, "It's not my place to tell you." He stood. "She shall be in with some food for you soon enough, all will be revealed then. I suggest that you slowly try to accustom your body to moving again in the meantime." With that he left, leaving George alone to his thoughts.

He stretched, and eventually he was able to sit up without feeling too stiff. He was finally able to look around the room. It was rather small, with only one bed, a side table and a wardrobe. There was only one window. He stood and walked over to it. Straight ahead, in about a hundred or so feet, he could see a forest that stretched beyond his sight range in all directions. The ground in between the house and the forest was made into a garden. He couldn't help thinking that everything he had seen so far would have been something that Pansy would have loved to love.

His musings was interrupted by the sound of children giggling from the other side of the house. He felt a pang of longing, that was something that both he and Pansy had wanted, a family all of their own.

"It's a beautiful view, isn't it?" asked an all-too-familiar voice from the doorway. He might not have heard it for seven years, but it was something he would never be able to forget.

He turned around slowly, not wanting to believe what he heard. It was too good to be true. His heart stopped at the sight that met his eyes. It was Pansy, alive and whole, and pregnant. Very pregnant. He could see the wedding ring glinting on her finger, the engagement ring he had given her long gone. His heart plummeted, and he knew now that he had lost her more than ever that night.

"Pansy," he said, his voice croaking as he felt his heart break.

"Hello, George," said Pansy, with a sad, wistful smile. "Have a seat, it'll be easier to talk." She placed the tray of food she had been carrying on the bed.

He sat beside his food and continued to stare at her as she took the only chair in the room. "I missed you."

"I know," she sighed, before looking down at her hands. "I missed you too. Please, eat."

Silence spread over the room as George started on the food. It was made by her own hands another of the many things about her that he missed.

"You're pregnant," stated George once he had finished eating. He hated the silence — seven years of not seeing each other and then two more of being unconscious but now that they were so close, he wanted to talk to her. To make her his. To do everything that they should have been doing for all those years. But he couldn't. He had finally found her and she belonged to another man. He couldn't even hate the man for having her. After all, they hadn't known that they would be able to see each other again. It killed him to admit it, if only to himself.

"Yes, I am." She looked back up at him. Tears were streaming down her face. "I love you. I never stopped loving you." She bit her lip as though she was trying to say something but couldn't bring herself to reveal it.

"You can tell me," George encouraged her. He thought he knew what it was, but he needed to hear her say it first.

She gulped and turned away from him, unable to look into his eyes. "I'm in love with him, too."

"I know."

She turned to face him, wide-eyed. "You do? How?"

George moved to kneel in front of her and lifted her chin so that he could look directly into her eyes. Same old insecure Pansy. It lifted his heart to know that she hadn't changed all that much. "Because I know you. And you wouldn't marry someone unless you had a good reason to. Not when you no longer have your parents controlling your every move."

Her eyes glistened in tears as she threw her arms around his neck and start to outright cry. The first time in years, since she had found herself without her George. She hadn't even cried when she found him nearly dead in the forest, but she could feel the walls that she had built up start to crumble.

George remembered the first time he had met her. It had been so similar, yet so different from now. When she had calmed down, he decided it was time to breach the subject that he knew that neither of them had ever wanted to even think of again. "What happened?"

She looked into his eyes, examining them for what felt like several minutes. Eventually she closed her eyes and nodded. "Nine years ago, I remember waking up in the very same forest we found you in..."

George listened intently as she told her story, knowing better than to interrupt, else she might never finish. He learned of her arrival in the forest, and being found by her husband, Tom Riddle (he had almost protested when she brought him up, but he knew better than to ask). She explained that she eventually came to the conclusion that she had somehow arrived in an alternate dimension. She went on to explain that she found out that she was pregnant with his children.

He couldn't stop from interrupting her this time. "Children," he gasped. "I have children?"

Pansy smiled at him, and placed her hand on his cheek, "Yes, twins, I'll introduce you to them soon."

She went on to explain her eventual falling for Tom and their marriage. She went on to finish her story and told of the three children that she had with Tom.

George shook his head. "Six kids, what are you trying to do? Take after my mum?"

Pansy giggled, and playfully whacked him on the arm. "You know better than that, you git."

He laughed and then hugged her. "So when are you going to introduce me to your charming family?" He may have been acting happy, but both of them knew that he was heartbroken. They also knew, however, that there was nothing they could do about it.

It took George a couple of months for his head to get wrapped around all that had been revealed to him. The part where Pansy was a mother and married was easy enough, even though it was what hurt the most. He had known in his heart that, if he ever found her, there was a good chance that she would be with someone else, no matter how unwilling he had been to admit it to himself at the time. What was difficult was believing that he was in another reality. It was just so unbelievable, so... He didn't even have words to describe what it was. What finally convinced him was Pansy's husband. Tom Riddle. He was nothing like the Voldemort in his world, nor was he at all like what he had learned of Riddle from before he became Voldemort. He seemed a lot more like Harry than anything.

He was willing to do anything for those that he cared about, even if that meant giving up his own life. He had even been in Gryffindor. He wasn't completely like Harry — he had no interest in Quidditch, or being an Auror. He was just the kind of guy that George felt Pansy deserved, and that made it impossible for George to hate him.

Surprisingly, he had no trouble to fitting into the family. His twins were so willing to accept him as a father, even after having lived with Tom as their father their whole life. Pansy blushingly revealed to him one night that she had been telling them stories about their true father from before they had even been born, and Tom simply encouraged her. Her other children had decided to accept him as second dad, and even if had wanted to, it would have been impossible to move out of the house. Everyone, including Tom, wanted him stay, and they were not going to let him go easily. Besides, he loved all of the children as his own, and couldn't let them go. Neither could he let Pansy go, despite the fact that he didn't really have her anymore.

It was his birthday when he had finally found that he couldn't take it anymore. Every time he saw them together, he felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest. He knew that Tom was just the kind of person that Pansy deserved, but nothing would be able to remover the feelings that he had. Living with them, it was nearly impossible for him not to see them together, and that only served to reinforce his certainty that she no longer needed him.

The final kicker was when he had received his birthday gift from Pansy. Ever since they had started dating it had been traditional for them to give each other one special kiss on their birthdays. It served to show their love for another and that there was no need to get the other something when all they needed was each other.

That year, Pansy had decided to continue their tradition.

George had been out beside the garden, his eyes closed, letting the wind blow into his face. He missed his home, but he felt happier here. It was hard, fearing what they would think of him if they ever learned his secret, and now the thought was even more difficult because of Tom. He liked Tom, and thought that Tom was a great guy, but the only Tom his family knew was the evil and cruel Tom, so it was doubtful that they would be very accepting of this Tom.

Pansy had came out and sat beside him, resting her head on his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around her waist. This was a position that was perfectly fine with him. It had always lightened his heart a little when they had been together, and that Pansy had done it on her own accord just then reassured him that Tom seemed fine with this position.

After several minutes of sitting peaceably like that Pansy sat up and turned to face him. She stared into his eyes silently for a moment. "George..."

And before he knew it, she was kissing him. Just as deeply and as passionately as they had back before she left. His first instinct was to respond. He poured his very soul into the kiss.

Then reality hit him. He pulled back and looked away from her, "I can't, I'm sorry but I can't."

"George, it's okay. Tom said —"

"I DON'T CARE! It's wrong, I can't."

Without another word, he stood and rushed into the house. He had to leave, there was no way that he could stay there anymore. It hurt too much. He knew that Tom was just trying to make the best of it, but he couldn't only have part of her and not the whole. It was too much; too many memories, too much pain.

His room was the first stop. Once he was there, he started throwing things wildly into his bag. He'd come back for visits, to see the kids and her, but there was no way he could stay there another day. As soon as he said goodbye to the kids he was leaving.

"George?" asked a concerned voice.

He spun around to see Tom standing in the doorway. Tom was looking really worried. George grunted before spinning back around.

"What is going on?" asked Tom, he was starting to sound angry. "You left Pansy crying in the garden. Why? And where are you going?"

"I can't do this anymore. She loves you, and you would do anything for her. It's too painful to stay and watch you have her."

"Then you stay and I'll go."

"What?" asked George, spinning around in confusion.

"I said you keep her," said Tom, staring at him with his arms crossed. His stance said don't argue with me. "You love her so much that you gave up everything to come and find her, and you didn't care about the consequences. You nearly died because of that, and it doesn't matter to you."

George shook his head wildly. "What about all those things that you do for her?"

"I do them for her and you. I love you both too much to see you hurting yourselves because of me."

They froze. Tom was wide-eyed, as if he couldn't believe that he had just said that. George stood there, his blood pounding in his ears. Suddenly everything clicked. He didn't know when it had happened, but at some point the pain had no longer been just about not being with Pansy, but about not being with both of them.

They stared into each other's eyes and nodded, coming to a silent agreement.