Entry tags:

fic, rating: pg-13, snarry-a-thon10

SNARRY-A-THON10: FIC: Too Hard To Go On, Too Much To Give Up
Title: Too Hard To Go On, Too Much To Give Up
Author: literaryspell
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,069
Warning(s): None
Prompt: #304 - Molly Weasley knows better than to match Severus and Harry together ... but she just cannot resist.
Summary: Molly can't help but blame herself for Severus and Harry's problems.
A/N: Huge thanks to my amazing betas for their help on this!

Too Hard To Go On, Too Much To Give Up



There is a moment at Molly Weasley's careworn and crowded dinner table that everything seems perfect.


She smiles, more with her eyes than her mouth—for it has become so difficult, without Fred, to smile a smile that shows teeth and full immersion in the events surrounding her—at her family. It has grown so large, so beautiful. Nothing has ever made Molly happy like a house full of laughter and voices and fun.


And now that George no longer reserves the seat beside him for someone who would never again sit there, things are no longer awkward and stilted. Maybe George, like Molly, puts all that sadness away, so deep that it can't ever be dug up, but it doesn’t matter.


Family.


She basks in it. But then… it happens.


It always starts with the smallest of things, as these things often do. Molly sighs. When she and Arthur first got together, it was so easy to fight over the little things. You're always a little hurt, a little lost, a little alone even when you're not. Then over the years, you find yourself in their eyes and you don't feel so scared anymore.


Molly had to wonder if Harry and Severus would ever get there.


Ron groans and Ginny smiles a little smile and Arthur frowns and Bill rolls his eyes and Charlie laughs and the kids fall silent and Molly can feel all their eyes on her next.


Yes, she'd set them up. She'd set the table, six months ago now, it had to be, with their plates beside each other and then their bodies had been beside each other and they'd been beside themselves in fury and then…


Something beautiful had happened.


In an instant, so quick she'd blinked and it'd disappeared, there'd been something real and raw and full of passion and potential and she'd smiled to herself, a secret smile full of self-congratulation because maybe they wouldn’t be lonely anymore.


"I can't believe you're doing this here!" Harry says now, in a hushed whisper as if no one can hear him when in reality their words are as clear as the hurt on Harry's face, the frustration on Severus', the hopeful glee on Ginny's, and the sadness on Ron's.


"If I'd had my way, I would be doing this in the comfort and privacy of our own home instead of—" Severus cuts himself off abruptly, seeming to remember himself.


At first, Severus hadn’t responded to Harry's attempts to start a fight, which is what he always claims them to be. Then, as their time together grew longer, he became more and more easily goaded until he no longer cared what anyone thought.


Maybe he never has; Molly doesn't know. She'd rather thought he'd liked them.


"You never said you didn’t want to come!"


Severus gives a cold laugh. Everyone at the table reflexively shudders. They all remember, one way or another, how cruel Severus can be. Used to be…


"I hadn’t thought you needed a daily reminder notice. Silly of me—of course you can't be told anything once and be expected to remember it."


"Now, Severus—" Arthur, dearest Arthur, takes umbrage to Severus' callous words and the way he speaks of hating them right in front of them.


But Harry isn’t about to let anyone fight his battles. Molly knows all too well the determined look on his face.


"Yes, maybe you ought to have written it down for me. Merlin knows you're not above treating me like a child!"


"And Merlin also knows you're not above acting like one."


Harry rises hard enough that his chair, held together by a hopeful Reparo, skids backwards and slams into a wall. A picture frame trembles—one of George and Fred—and for the first time, Molly's lips purse and she becomes agitated.


"Harry Potter!" she begins, but she doesn’t know where to go from there. How to fix something that was broken even before it began?


But Harry doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care to—he's across the room and out the back door before anyone can calm him down.


Without Harry, Severus looks… out of place. Like there's not enough of him, all of a sudden.


Rather like Harry made him a bigger man.


Severus treats everyone, even the children, to a disdainful glare and rises with little more poise than Harry had. He stiffly crosses the room and throws open the door that Harry had thrown shut.


Silence, then whispers, then full-volume conversations circle the table. Ginny again claims that this fight would be the last—really, Molly decides, it's time to talk to her daughter about moving on—Ron says that he certainly hopes so, Arthur shakes his head, and Bill and Charlie make crude but thankfully subtle comments on how passionate Harry and Severus' sex life must be.


Instead of taking part, knowing that they all blame her and her matchmaking ways for the drama that reigns every time Severus and Harry are in the same room, Molly begins to clear the table, taking the dishes to the sink. She looks out through the window at the backyard.


To her surprise, Harry and Severus are standing about twenty metres from the house. Severus has his hand on Harry's arm—half restraining, half clinging, though you'll never hear her using the latter word to describe it—and Harry looks up at Snape with furrowed brows.


They're still fighting, she knows. She's seen enough of their arguments to know that the fights are about nothing and nothing can really stop them.


Then there's something. Like the something she'd seen before that had gotten the wheels to turning in the first place. A flash of fire, something, something…


Severus' hand cups Harry's cheek. Harry pulls away—oh, dear Harry—but then, when Severus begins to take his hand back, Harry changes his mind and grabs it, placing it back on his face and leaning into it.


Their lips barely move but they are speaking.


Severus takes a step forward.


Harry takes one, too.


Harry says something that makes Severus roll his eyes and then smile. It's small, yes. But to Harry, Molly can see it's enough.


They look earnest for a moment—exchanging apologies, perhaps? And then… they kiss.


In that kiss is every single argument they've ever had. There's so much between them, beautiful and hard and old and new and scary and safe.


Molly looks away. But not before she smiles that secret smile, full of self-congratulation.


And hope.


-end-