disclaimer: i do not own anything you recognize.
notes: this was written in my email and i was too lazy to use capitalization unless its for names, so sorry if that bothers you. for the Love Triangle Challenge at HPFC with the prompts: shine, lost & grass.
summary: it's the best night of her life. -—RoseTeddyMolly.

list it with the things you'll never have
RoseTeddyMolly

—

things start going awry when Molly Weasley (the second, mind you) graduated and suddenly is just like all the other girls that want him. and because Rose Weasley doesn't shineshineshine like all the other girls, like the perfect ones (Molly, Victoire, Lily, Roxanne, Lucy, Dominique - all of them, everyone single one, have more perfection running through their veins than herself), she tells herself that it's perfectly fine to be just a little bit jealous of them. because it is - isn't it?

but whatever, she tells herself. because he choose her, a girl who smells like musty books and wears the minimal amount of make-up. he choose her, the girl whose quite possibly the antithesis of everything that he was ever used to. and perhaps, that's the greatest compliment she's ever received.

—

on the day that she turned sixteen, she kisses him. on the day that she turned sixteen, she dumped Scorpius. on the day that she turned sixteen, it had been forty-two days, sixteen hours, three minutes and fifty-four seconds exactly since Victoire broke up with him.

and on the day that she turned sixteen, she was convinced that she fell in love.

(she always did believe in the fairytales that her Mother told her when she was little.)

—

when the summer after Molly graduates comes, she runs away.

(everyone wonders what happens, but nobody knows why or says so if they do know.)

—

at the end of that summer, they celebrate their one-year anniversary (of their first date, not kiss). Teddy throws them a big party with the whole family and their friends, who never even imagined that they would last this long, and she feels truly like a princess. it's the best night of her life.

until -

"Molly?"

- she comes back, tanned with long hair and she sparkleshimmerglimmers in the low light of the night. she looks even prettier than Rose remembered and everyone is distracted from celebrating them to welcoming back her.

(and even her prince is more happy than she ever remembers when he sees her, and she wonders what that means.)

—

they spend the rest of the summer at his apartment and it's practically like a fairytale, because she can live without a castle and a white horse and servants. because all she really needs for it to be a fairytale, is him.

but he is becoming detached, and she doesn't know why.

(but she realizes that she likes it better that way, not to know.)

—

she knows he's cheating on her. she smells the perfume, sees the new marks on his exposed skin, notices when he says not tonight, Rosie. i'm working. she thought he would be more careful, if this happened, but apparently not.

she makes a vow to herself that once she finds out who he's with, she'll dump him.

(but she isn't sure if she'll keep it.)

—

slowly, he's pulling away from her. he talks to her less and less, until he stops talking to her altogether. she doesn't realize what really happened between them until Molly announces she's pregnant.

(she has a pretty good idea whose the father.)

—

she hears them arguing one day at the burrow, about the baby. it's early morning and everyone else is asleep, but Rose stayed up all night reading. their arguing in a loud whisper, no doubt trying not to wake anyone up. they don't notice her.

"of course you know how it happened, Teddy!"

"that's not what i meant - i meant, can't you just, i dunno - couldn't you have just -"

"got an abortion? i'm not getting an abortion. besides, it's too late now. everyone knows."

"but it would've been - " hesitation "- easier."

"for you. not for me, Ted. i could never live with myself if i let that happen."

she couldn't listen to the conversation anymore, so she ran outside. she sat with her legs criss-crossed on the coldcold snow and put her head in her hands. she groaned. this was supposed to be a fairytale, wasn't it? she thought. this wasn't suppose to happen. at least not this way.

—

she's found cold and asleep on the ground, her pulse dangerously slow. people carry her back inside and fuss around her, telling people to get all the blankets in the house, all the clothes. Molly is watching her with her fingers around her rib cage and breathing slowly; in, out, in, out.

he stays beside her, looking worried and confused. but that's not just because of Rose.

—

she's asleep for a week and a half and when Teddy sees her up, he says over and over and over again how there's no one else, never will be. how she's the one, the one and asking: will you marry me?

she says yes.

(she thinks that maybe, if she becomes Mrs. Rose Anna Lupin-Weasley that he'll forget about the other one.)

—

the baby is born before the wedding. in fact, it's born three weeks after Rose's own birthday. it's - wait, she's - not a metamorphmagus, at least not yet, so there's not pointing fingers at him, but she thinks she sees something like longing when he lays eyes on his daughter.

she isn't surprised, to tell the truth.

Molly names her (their) child Seraphina Harlow Weasley. her eyes are bright grass/emerald/leaf green (just like her mother's) and she's all happy/laughing/smiling after she finished crying. people ooh and ahh at the small girl, saying things like how she's so beautiful or how wonderful she is. and Rose thinks that even little Seraphina, who hasn't been alive for a day, is more perfect than her.

(she sees Teddy in her too, but she tries not to think about that because for whatever reason, she hoped/wanted/thought that she would just see her cousin in there, not her fiancee, too.)

—

the wedding is on april fifteenth, and there's six bridesmaids all in the colors of the rainbow (Roxanne, Lucy, Lily, Victoire, Eva Wood & Charlotte Boot in respective colors) while she's in a gown that was originally white, but now tye-dyed with various shades. the walk down the isle with her father seems achingly slow and the wedding march seems more sad (the opposite of her dress) than the beginning of her life with him. when she is finally dropped off at the alter, her father whispers:

"you could back out, y'know. it's not too late. i've always believed that you could do so much more than just be a housewife."

she just smiles at her father, although the thought sticks with her. the pastor starts reading, but she hardly noticed. (you could back out, y'know. it's not too late.) it is too late, she realizes. it is too late to salvage this - this thing Teddy because while he's up standing next to her, he keeps on glancing over at his daughter and Molly in the crowd and so, when the time comes, she says -

"no. i don't."

and runs out of the wedding, out of the church, until she becomes lost. it's then that she remembers she could apparate and apparates to the one person's house that she can think of who isn't at the wedding.

"hi, Scorpius - " awkward silence "- can i - can i stay here for awhile?"

(he says yes, and doesn't question her until she opens up to him.)

—

they aren't exactly friends, Scorpius and her, but they aren't enemies, either. she tells him about the wedding, about Teddy, about Molly. he tells her about his failed relationship with Anya Parkinson, about his job, about his travels.

they aren't exactly friends, because although they knew each other once like soul-mates, they haven't talked in years, and now, they're more like strangers.

but it's better, talking to him. it's better, because he won't judge, because he won't interrupt her.

it's better, because she thinks that he actually cares.

—

and because she's Rose Weasley, she knows that everything will work out, whether or not it was exactly like how she pictured it the first time around.

because sometimes, you just have to be open to something unexpected.

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