A/N: Hello, dear reader! This is the first of what will be a 50-fic drabble collection for owluvr's Character Diversity Boot Camp Challenge. Each fic will feature a different character, without any repetition, and will be based on a list of prompts. Please review! And feel free to suggest characters! God knows there's too many to count.
Prompt: 2. Facade
Character: Molly Weasley II
Teddy has always seen her differently to other people.
They see big, brown eyes and softened, rounded features and a coppery mess that she cannot tame, but he sees something that's not quite her and something that is so utterly and entirely her that she's given up hiding. He sees the strength in her eyes and the sharp jut of bones set in determination, and the lips that tell him she's happy he's here. (And they always do.) He sees the secrets she's keeping and the dreams she's ignoring and even the lies she's chanting to herself. She pretends she doesn't want him to see, but he sees that too.
Molly no longer wears makeup or falsifies herself when she's around him because he knows it and she knows it and it's all a bit ridiculous.
He thinks he loves her even before she has managed to tease her hair into curls and before she has slicked her lips a shade of pink that makes him think of little girls and stereotypes. He tells her she's perfect before she has plucked and waxed and shaped and before she has blackened her eyelashes and coloured her eyelids and even before she has covered every imperfection on her body with silk and cotton.
He's the only one so far who has managed to peel back her skin without touching her. He's the only one so far who has cared enough to find the voice hidden in the shadows of this facade. He is the only one who she can let in.
And when he finally kisses her it feels like coming home.