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starlingflight · 2 months

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Mortifying

A/N: I respected the WIP poll and finished this first, over my own preferences, because this is a democracy.

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The sound of loud, thumping footsteps on the staircase alerted Harry that he was no longer alone in the house.

His quill paused over the parchment taking up too much of his desk. Paperwork had never been his preferred activity; it had only become an increasing headache since taking leadership of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. A burden he would usually welcome any excuse to get away from, but when that excuse was the unmistakable sound of his teenaged daughter stomping upstairs, it was hard to decide which was the least daunting prospect.

The now-familiar sound of one of his children's bedroom doors slamming reverberated through the house. Sighing, Harry placed his quill in its ink pot, steeling himself, as he pushed his chair back from his desk and cautiously made his way out into the hallway.

“Lily?” He called softly, adopting a voice one might typically use when approaching an angry dragon.

The only response he received was the faint thrum of music emanating from her room above, presumably intended as a plausible excuse for why she did not answer her father's call.

Harry hesitated, foot on the bottom stair. It was ridiculous, he knew, to approach his daughter with the same caution he usually applied when chasing dark wizards, but she had been impossible to predict of late, having returned from her second year at Hogwarts with a newfound supply of eye rolls and huffy sighs that were completely at odds with the sweet girl he'd always known.

The music echoed louder through the house as Harry reached the top of the stairs, muffled only slightly by Lily's bedroom door. It was an earsplitting volume that he would more commonly expect from Al.

Harry knocked firmly on Lily's door, loud enough to be heard over the blasting music. It silenced at once. “Go away!”

Despite the definitive instruction, his hand poised around the door handle. He couldn't help but smile at the sign affixed to the door in front of him, Lily's name surrounded by carefully drawn flowers and butterflies, the gentle illustrations clashed starkly with her current tone.

“It's only me,” he said through the door. “I didn't expect you home yet.”

She'd only left an hour ago, popping her head into his office long enough to inform him she would be spending the afternoon at Violet's house, before disappearing. He'd heard the flash of floo powder being thrown into the fire in the living room, and then the house had been silent.

“Well, I'm going to be home for the rest of my life!” Came Lily's dramatic pronouncement from the opposite side of the door.

Harry hesitated only a moment longer. “I'm coming in.” He was already opening the door.

Lily's room was as he'd envisioned; soft lilac walls, shelves covered in plants rather than books, and a stuffed animal collection that had been unceremoniously shoved under the bed recently whenever her friends were expected, and only brought back out when she could be sure there would be no witnesses.

What he hadn’t anticipated was to find Lily sprawled across her bed, face buried in her pillow, bright red hair spilling vibrantly over her white bedding.

Harry crossed the room quickly, perching on the end of her bed. “What's wrong?”

Lily lifted her head just enough for her voice not to be muffled by her pillow. “I want to be homeschooled.”

Harry's eyebrows shot up at this pronouncement, another thing he would've more readily expected from Al. “You love Hogwarts.”

“I did,” Lily corrected. “Before I made a complete fool of myself… Now I can never show my face in public again!”

Harry's hand fell on her back, rubbing soothing circles like he'd done when she was small and her nightmares had called him into this room in the middle of the night. “What's happened?”

Lily shook her head, letting it fall back into the pillow.

“It can't be that bad,” Harry assured her. “Did I ever tell you about the time I fainted on the train?”

Lily's head whipped around, dislodging Harry's hand from her back as she sat up. “Because there was a Dementor, not because you're the most embarrassing person to ever be born!”

“You're not the most embarrassing –”

“Yes, I am!” Lily declared, drawing her knees up to her chest. “Don't tell me I'm not. You have to say that.”

“Alright,” Harry said placatingly. “Will you tell me what happened?”

Lily looked at him, her brown eyes appraising. “Promise not to laugh at me?”

The innocent question caused a pang in Harry's heart. “I would never laugh at you.”

“Lewis Fletcher did,” her tone made it clear this was quite possibly the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Worse than an unexpected Dementor on a train could ever be.

Harry frowned, mentally reeling through his list of Lily's friends in his mind and coming up empty. “Who's Lewis Fletcher?”

Before his eyes, Lily turned a magnificent shade of red. Her eyes fell to the bed, where she was picking nervously at a thread on the cover. “He's a fourth year… he's friends with Violet's brother and he's really good at Quidditch.”

“I see.” He rather wished he didn't.

“I didn't know he was there until he said hello – I jumped and spilled my pumpkin juice all over him.”

“Well, that sounds like an accident,” Harry said fairly, suppressing the urge to smile.

Lily looked up sharply. “You do want to laugh at me!”

“I don't,” Harry said quickly. “Sorry, I was just thinking of your mum.”

“You can't tell Mum!”

The smile Harry had been fighting to repress was quickly battled into submission, not by any of his efforts, but by the look of horror on Lily's face at the suggestion of telling Ginny.

“You tell Mum everything.” More than she ever told Harry.

It had been the same since the moment Lily could walk, her first steps had been towards Ginny, and she hadn't stopped following her since.

It was an actuality Ginny had predicted was about to change only the other day.

"Did you see the look she gave me?” Ginny asked incredulously, pointing her wand at the pile of dirty dishes on the side and directing them to wash themselves. “All I asked her to do was put her laundry in the basket.”

Harry looked up from the fruit he’d been chopping in an attempt to entice Al into something slightly more nutritional than the endless supply of chocolate frogs he’d taken to eating in place of actual meals.

“I’m not asking her to actually do the washing,” Ginny continued before he could say anything. “Although, maybe I should, given the glare I got for washing her purple skirt last week.” Her ensuing impression of Lily was eerily accurate. “‘I need that for Samara’s birthday party! What am I supposed to wear now?’ Oh I don’t know, Lily, what about one of the millions of other outfits I’ve lovingly bought for you?”

Smiling, Harry sent the sliced strawberries, kiwi and banana to mix themselves in the awaiting bowl on the counter. “I have it on good authority that anyone who’s anyone wore purple to Samara’s birthday party.”

Ginny’s laughter was accompanied by a raised eyebrow. “Is that what your Auror intelligence is telling you these days?”

“No, I got this information straight from the source… against my will, while trying very hard not to listen, when I took Lily and Violet to Diagon Alley last week.”

“Ah, back in the field, are you, Auror Potter?” Ginny winked at him across the kitchen.

Harry’s sigh shook with barely contained laughter. “My most dangerous mission yet.”

Ginny’s smile faltered, in the space of a blink, it slid from her face. “I’m losing her.”

“You’re not–”

“I am,” Ginny insisted. “She didn’t even ask me what I thought she should wear to that stupid party – she always asks me… that’s it, I’m officially her annoying mother!”

Harry shook his head. “Don’t you think you might be catastrophising a bit?”

“No,” Ginny replied at once. “You have no idea how teenaged girls think. I’m not going to get anything but glares and withering looks for the next seven years.”

“Where are you going?” She was already halfway to the door before Harry managed to ask the question.

Ginny paused, her hand on the doorframe as though she was in need of support. “To order my mum a very large flower arrangement.”

“Yeah, but I'm not telling her this” Lily exclaimed now, throwing Harry one of Ginny’s predicted withering looks. “She's not going to get it… Look at her!”

Lily waved an aggravated arm at the wall opposite, where one of Ginny's old Harpies posters had been hung beside a signed picture of Aurora Fontaine – ‘She's a lyrical genius, Dad!’ – and a collection of hand painted botanical drawings that Neville had given her a few years ago, when it was becoming clear Lily had a green thumb.

Right on cue, the poster version of Ginny tossed her hair dramatically over her shoulder, revealing the Harpies badge on her robes, and looking very much like a woman who would never dream of spilling pumpkin juice on anyone.

Harry decided to ignore the implication that he, apparently, was embarrassing enough to be entrusted with this information. Saving the world just didn't impress teenagers as much as being a professional Quidditch player, a factor he'd foolishly failed to consider when choosing a career path.

“First of all, I think you’re overblowing this a bit, it’s just some pumpkin juice, Lils–”

“His t-shirt turned bright orange!” Lily cried despairingly. “Everyone was laughing at me!”

“No one is going to remember it by the time summer ends,” Harry said, in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

Lily did not appear to agree. “I think my best plan is to obliviate them all.”

“Do you know how to do a memory charm?”

“No, but I can learn.”

“So, instead of enjoying your summer, and pretending this minor incident never happened, you’re going to spend it learning how to do a complicated spell, well above your age range, that has a high likelihood of going horribly wrong, and then use it on your friends?”

“Yes.” If Lily grasped the sarcasm in Harry’s tone, she did an excellent job of not showing it.

There was a moment of silence in which Lily slumped back over her pillows, and Harry contemplated whether he might need to confiscate her wand; a loud knock sounded on the door before he could reach a decision.

“Come in – unless it’s James, then go away!”

“Lily,” Harry said warningly.

Fortunately, it wasn’t James. Ginny’s head peered around the door; her brow furrowed, taking in the sight of Harry perched on the edge of Lily’s bed, and Lily still draped forlornly across her pillows.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Lily said quickly, before Harry could answer. “Dad was just leaving.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah, don’t you have one of those reports you’re always going on about to finish?”

Ginny’s eye met Harry's as she sidled into the room, her grin took a great deal of the sting out of Lily’s disdainful tone.

“Well, I don’t know about Dad’s horrifically boring reports, but I’ve just come from the office, and they’ve given me the lineup for this year’s All Star charity Quidditch match… It’ll be in my column tomorrow but I thought you might want the inside scoop.”

Lily looked doubtful, but she did sit up another inch on her pillows. “Is there someone good for once? It was embarrassing watching Ludo Bagman try to play last year.”

Ginny's eyes flicked to Harry's even as she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from smiling. Harry looked away quickly, knowing they were both in agreement with Lily's fair assessment of Bagman's performance the year previous.

Ginny cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t know what her flying skills are like, but they’ve got Aurora Fontaine playing seeker for the celebrity team.”

Upon hearing this, Lily sat up with such ferocity Harry was almost pushed from the bed by the force of her movement.

“You're joking!”

“Would I joke about Aurora Fontaine?” Ginny's eyes met Harry's again, and, as usual, the joke was just between them.

She looked away as she continued to speak, “...and I might have agreed to come out of retirement for one match and play chaser in exchange for some VIP passes.”

Lily's eyes widened; Harry felt his smile grow along with hers. “For me?”

“Obviously,” Ginny said through a laugh. “There's a spare one as well, if you know someone who'd be interested?”

Lily leapt from the bed, pausing only long enough to throw her arms around Ginny in a quick, but delighted, hug, before pulling the door open.

“Where are you going?” Ginny asked.

“To tell Violet!”

“Hang on,” Harry called after her. “I thought you weren’t ever leaving your room again?”

Lily was already halfway out of the door; she threw him an exasperated look over her shoulder. “Dad, this is important.”

With that, she turned and fled the bedroom, the incident apparently forgotten in the face of bigger issues.

Harry pushed himself up from Lily's bed, joining Ginny who was waiting for him in the doorway.

“Do I get a VIP pass?” Harry asked, following her down the landing towards the stairs.

Ginny smirked at him over her shoulder as she began to descend. “No, I stopped trying to impress you around the time I grew three human beings for you.”

Harry laughed, secure in the knowledge he would be expected to supervise Lily if Ginny was playing in the match.

“You don't need to impress her either, she still has a very idealised view of you.”

“I suppose she told you that at the same time she told you she was never leaving her room again?”

They reached the bottom of the stairs; Ginny continued down the downstairs hallway in the direction of the kitchen.

“She spilled pumpkin juice on Lewis Fletcher and he laughed at her apparently,” Harry said, answering Ginny's unasked question as she pointed her wand at the kettle.

“Who’s Lewis Fletcher?”

“No idea,” Harry shrugged, leaning nonchalantly against the counter, as though he didn't have every intention of finding out. “But he's good at Quidditch apparently.”

Ginny paused halfway through retrieving their mugs from the cupboard. “Oh.”

“I was just about to tell her about a certain incident between your elbow and a butter dish to put her mind at ease, but you interrupted me.”

Ginny frowned at him before returning her attention to the kettle. “The butter dish?”

Harry returned her frown. “You don’t remember?”

“You do apparently,” she said evasively.

“Well, maybe she'll forget, and in thirty years, when they're married, he can remind her.”

Ginny shook her head vehemently. “She won't marry him.” She placed the kettle down with a decided thud. “He laughed at her. You never laughed at me.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said you didn't remember?”

“I don’t.” Ginny smiled widely, her eyes sparking with amusement. “I forgot about it instantly.”

“Seems like it,” Harry agreed through a smile of his own.

“I definitely didn’t spend hours in bed replaying it in my mind.” Ginny crossed the kitchen, placing Harry's tea on the counter beside him.

“Of course you didn't.” His hand found her waist, pulling her to him.

Ginny rose up on her toes, still smiling as she closed the distance between them. “It wasn’t mortifying at all.”

#dad!harry #lily luna potter #harry potter #harry x ginny #hinny #ginny potter #potter family fluff

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