a/n: this did not come out as planned. but...i sort of like it.

wordcount: 1,192

naturally shining
MollyTeddy

all i wanted was you
all i wanted was you
( paramore )

Molly Weasley was one who shone easily. One who easily claimed the center of attention and laughed at all the right moments.

But that was with all the right practice, and there might be just one boy- no, man -who made it seem like she never had all that practice in the first place.

Teddy fucking Lupin.

Yeah. Of course it would be him.

She had walls of steel that she carefully placed around herself as protection. She's heard the stories of heartbreak, she's heard the stories of happy-endings, she's heard the stories of someone pining over the same person for years and years and never doing anything about it and she was not going to be one of those girls.

But Molly did not believe in love, anyway, so it wasn't that much of a problem.

Not that sappy, perfect, romantic kind of love, anyway. The kind of love that was seen in Muggle films and books- oh no, that could never happen in real life at all.

At least, not for her.

(Here's when her walls of steel can be counted as a bad thing.)

However, when she sees Victoire with Teddy Lupin, she just slightly believes in happily-ever-afters and Prince Charmings and all that shit that she never, ever, believed in before. But then butterflies erupt in her stomach, and she's back to cursing the thing called 'love' because, surely, she would not have her own happily-ever-after when she's (Meaning Victoire, obviously.) got him, and she has nobody herself.

And that's what she believes, ninety-nine percent, that is. That she'll die alone, and happily at that.

But there's one percent, that small sliver of a percent, that doesn't believe in what she tries to convince herself. Because there has to be just a small piece of everyone that believes, that hopes, that dreams, because without that, they'd be absolutely nothing.

And Molly Leanne Weasley was coming pretty close to being that absolutely nothing.

He was always there in her life- haunting her is the way that she thinks describes him best, because he would always remind her of what she could never, ever have.

But she has the stage. She has Shakespeare, and colorful hair, and tattoos of dragons painted on her skin, and she has her friends, her family- that's what matters most.

She may not have him.

But she has just about everything else.

(And she was just beginning to think why should he be any different?)

It sort of spirals a little bit out of hand one night during the Winter Holiday. She's downstairs in the kitchen because she can't sleep. (Any guesses why? Him, him, him. Yup, that's the reason why.)

And he goes downstairs for just a simple glass of milk, one that will hopefully lull him to sleep.

But, of course, she doesn't let him go back upstairs as easy as he would like.

"Teddy," she says, smiling her best smile at him.

"Yes, Molly?" He says as he sits down next to her. She moves her chair closer to him, not so indiscreetly as one would thought that she'd do.

"Can you change your hair to match mine?" She says, pointing to her electric-blue colored hair.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," he says as his hair changes from his natural, mousy brown to the same shade of blue that Molly has.

"Yay!" She says as she claps her hands. "Now, we match!"

He laughs. "I suppose we do, Molls."

"Y'know, we haven't been spending as much time as we had before you started dating Victoire," Molly states.

That was true, at least. At one point in time, Molly and Teddy were just about as close as Teddy was with Lily. But their friendship faded quickly into dust as he fell deeper, deeper into Victoire.

He sighs, and runs his hand through his hair. "No, we haven't. I've been meaning to take you out to dinner, but you know how Victoire gets."

Molly laughs, because she does know how Victoire gets crazy jealous. "Yeah, I know how she would react. But why don't we talk now? No Victoire to yell at us, no family to interrupt."

He glances back up at the staircase. "I really should be going back upstairs…"

"Oh, but Teddy!" Molly says. "Come on, we haven't talked in ages and soon I'll be going on tour with my Muggle theatre group for months!"

"Really? You're going on tour?"

"See," Molly points out. "You didn't even know that. How can you know if I have a bloke in my life or not?"

"Because you said 'bloke', and I doubt that you would describe your boyfriend like that, I don't think you have a boyfriend right now, is that correct?" Teddy says as Molly pushes him lightly on the arm.

"Alright, true," Molly says. "But I don't believe in love, anyway."

"Oh, come on Molly, what happened to that little girl that danced in tutus that said she wanted to marry me one day?" Teddy says as raises his eyebrows. "I mean, you must believe in it."

She blushes at the reminder of that memory. "I was seven, Teddy," she says. "I didn't know what I wanted."

"So now you don't want me?" He says as he moves in on her.

"I never said that," she says.

Her breath hitches as he moves closer and closer, until they are only centimeters apart. And, Merlin, how she wants this, how she wants him but-

"Victoire," she murmurs once their lips are just about to touch.

"Come on, Molly," Teddy says as he tilts his head. "One, tiny, kiss can't hurt, can it?"

But it does, oh, how it does.

And the kiss wasn't meant to be the beginning of a disaster-girl, it was meant to be wonderful and perfect and amazing and, truthfully, it was.

It was everything that Molly wished and hoped and thought it would be, and when he pulled away she wanted to grab him and forget. Forget about her life, forget about the tour, forget about everything.

But she never had it easy.

And when he goes back upstairs, he winks at her and she notices that his hair is changed back to the color of Lily's fiery red hair.

She would always come in second place, it seemed.

She went on the tour and sung her heart out in the musical numbers, and the crowds, all of them, just loved her and she alwaysalwaysalways had a standing ovation at the end, which just made her shine even more than she did before.

And when she went back to England to perform her last and final performance, she immediately noticed her huge family in the crowd and it took all her will to stand on that stage and do what she's been doing for months.

She came back shining brighter than ever before, but, of course, there was still one little fault within that shining star.

And she had a feeling it would always be there.

(Because, as long as he'd be there, she'd always have a little bit of hope that he'd choose her instead of anybody else.)

a/n: if you like it enough to favorite, please don't do so without reviewing.

Feel free to ask for a pairing as long as you add a prompt with it.