A Motherly Intervention.

Title: The Elephant In The Room.
Author: pekeleke
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Severus Snape/Harry Potter.
Challenge: Prompt 13 (Picked from an online seasonal prompt list): Snowflakes.
Word Count: 1391
Content: Chapter 13 of my Christmas Series: A Motherly Intervention.
Warnings: Getting Together. Enemies to friends to lovers. Mild Angst. Romance.
Disclaimer: The characters, setting, and the HP franchise are owned by JKR and not me. I make no profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.
A/N: Unbeated. Posting one chapter a day from December 1st to the 25th.
Summary: “Harry sits in the corner, where he's been since dinner ended, nursing the same bottle of butterbeer he'd grabbed upon arrival, and stares dreamily at Severus. He is so obviously in love that Molly can't understand how nobody in the family has started teasing him about it yet.”

The Elephant In The Room.

The Weasley family has a tradition. It's a fun little game that Molly has been playing with the kids since they were young. It eventually expanded to include all her adult children, their partners, and their little tykes too. Molly has always been in charge of casting the magic that randomly allocates the gift recipients' names for the family's Secret Santa exchange. She manipulated the spell in the past to resolve petty disagreements between her kids, and she's never, not once, regretted those interventions. Despite her minor meddling peccadilloes, Molly has never, so far, used the Secret Santa spell to aid one of her babies' romantic endeavors, but that is about to change.

Harry is a special case of disaster, and he's messed up his love life worse than any of his siblings. Molly doesn't have a reputation as an unrepentant busybody for nothing. She'll do many things indeed to aid her family, and that includes shamelessly manipulating this year's Secret Santa exchange to aid her matchmaking scheme. Thus, Molly adds an extra layer to the usual matching charm, ensuring that Severus will be the one to draw Harry's name.

Severus is slowly warming up to Harry, but his progress is too slow. The potioneer is perfectly content in his role as a reactive acquaintance. He doesn't put any effort into seeking Harry out and seems to require an excuse to interact with him. Severus's aloofness forces Harry to come up with increasingly random reasons to engineer casual encounters between them, and he's running out of them. Harry rarely has cases that involve mysterious potions, and there are only so many outings Molly can accompany him to as a way to legitimize Harry's invitations.

If she wants the boys' relationship to ever move forward, Molly must find a way to pique Severus's curiosity about Harry. Severus needs to view him not as a fellow honorary Weasley or even as the child he once taught, but as a man he knows little about. A man he could befriend. A man worthy of his respect. A man he might have so many things in common with that they could provide one another with an invaluable sense of comfort and understanding.

Molly realizes that Severus's past teaching relationship with Harry is a troublesome weight of negative baggage that hinders their efforts to find common ground. Still, that doesn't mean they should allow the past to dictate the nature of their current interactions. They both have grown a lot in the last decade. Ignoring that fact would be a terrible mistake.

Furthermore, Harry was never the boy Severus assumed he was. And Severus wasn't the traitor of Harry's teenage rantings. One of them has seen through those old biases. And now it's time for the other to discover the same truth. After mulling the problem for a few days, Molly has concluded that this is the subtlest and most gentle way of aiding them. Forcing Severus to come up with a reasonable gag gift to give to Harry for the family's Secret Santa will encourage the potioneer to look at the curse breaker with fresh eyes.

Despite her resolution to intervene, and the many good reasons that guide her actions, Severus’s obvious distress when he pulls his giftee’s name out of Great-Aunt Gertrude's ancient purple hat is so evident that Molly feels incredibly guilty. Almost instantly, Severus seeks Draco’s reassure that the exchange isn’t some sort of prank; a way to make him look bad when the person he's meant to provide a gift for opens 'some ridiculous nick-knack they'll have no use for.' Draco confirms with an understanding smile that no serious gifts are allowed in the Weaslyes’ Secret Santa exchange. He'd struggled with the concept at first, too.

Severus shrinks a bit into himself after that, retreating from the lively conversation he'd been having with George. Their collaboration has been a roaring success, and it's already on the road to becoming a rather close friendship. Molly had suspected the two of them would get on like a house on fire since George has always had a soft spot for his most stern professor. She is glad to be correct.

Harry sits in the corner, where he's been since dinner ended, nursing the same bottle of butterbeer he'd grabbed upon arrival, and stares dreamily at Severus. He is so obviously in love that Molly can't understand how nobody in the family has started teasing him about it yet. Ron must be aware of his feelings. And Draco has been looking at him suspiciously since the day of Scorpius's Christening. Molly wonders if Draco approves of Harry's interest in his godfather and tries to decide whether he'd be willing to help. Draco is unapologetically protective of Severus. She should probably have a word with him, reassure him that Harry would never hurt his beloved godfather on purpose.

Molly sighs, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. She rushes into the kitchen, leaving them to fend for themselves for a minute, and takes the deepest breath she can manage. Her thoughts whirl helplessly in an effort to decide who needs her attention the most and how she can best help them. She fixes her attention on the view outside the window, brown gaze lost on the soothing sea of gently falling snowflakes intent on turning the evening into a winter wonderland, and tells herself that everything will be alright in the end. She has faith in her family, in the hearts they wear so proudly on their sleeves. They all know how to love and how to take risks. She shouldn't worry so much about them.

A couple of hours later, Molly feels better about her meddling. Ron and Hermione left ages ago. Hugo is teething again, and they wanted to put him to bed early, hoping to maximize his rest. George is bothering Draco in the kitchen. Ginny is asleep on the couch while baby Scorpious drools lightly onto her designer top. And, miracle of miracles, Harry sits on the fireside love seat with Severus.

After spending a fair amount of time studying him subtly, the potioneer finally approached him about an hour ago. Molly stretches her legs towards the fire and studies them through half-lidded eyes, and a gentle sort of hope tries to bloom inside her chest. Every now and then, she can hear a word or two of the boys' conversation, and it's clear to her that Severus is attempting to pump Harry for information about his interests. Harry looks surprised but also elated. He is eager to indulge Severus's apparent curiosity, and they've stumbled into a lively discussion about the merits of a couple of relatively obscure curse-breaking texts. It sounds like Severus's knack for Charm-creation started as an interest in curse-breaking. Once upon a time, he'd dreamed of becoming an Unspeakable.

"You would have been brilliant at it," Harry gasps, loud in his enthusiastic approval, and Severus smiles self-consciously, picking non-existent lint from the scrupulously neat folds of his robes.

"I'm much better at potions," Severus points out quietly, so busy staring at his knees that he misses Harry's besotted look of adoration entirely.

"You are good at a lot of things, Severus," Harry says softly and reaches out with bold hands to stop the anxious twitching of Severus's potion-stained fingertips.

Severus stills. Shoulders hunching self-protectively as if waiting for the punchline of a joke. Molly holds her breath, silently urging her Harry to be gentle now. She has never seen Severus look more fragile. If there is a time for Harry to show him how tender he can be with another man's heart, that moment is now. A man as unused to kindness as Severus clearly is, will take notice.

"I wish I could have met you before the wars. I used to have your potions text, back in sixth year. Slughorn was honestly convinced I was a genius at potions. But it was all you. I could have learned so much. If I'd let you teach me."

"You'd have liked your parents better. I was— blind. I wanted to belong. I looked for acceptance in the wrong places."

Harry smiles at him oh-so-gently, and his heart is in his eyes when he replies, "You're not so blind anymore."

Severus doesn't respond, but his gaze is bright with wonder. Molly closes her eyes with a sigh. The look of dawning understanding they're about to share belongs to no one but them.