I do not own anything related to Harry Potter, that would be J. K. Rowling
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It was early in the morning when Harry was awoken by a constant gentle prodding in his shoulder. Groggily he yawned and opened his eyes to see his nine year old daughter, Lily, standing at the side of his bed grinning at him.
"Morning Daddy!" Lily greeted in a happy whisper.
"Hey Flower," Harry said lazily, rubbing his eyes. "What is it?"
"You said we could go flying today!" Lily answered excitedly.
Harry looked out the large window in his and Ginny's bedroom. It looked like it couldn't have been five minutes since the sun had risen above the horizon. Quietly, Harry laughed to himself. Lily always was an early riser. Once, on being asked why she woke up so early when she was seven, Lily had answered that it was because she didn't want to miss out on anything. The same statement still remains true today.
"What's so funny, Daddy?" Lily asked, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
"Nothing, Flower," Harry answered, ruffling Lily's long red hair. Lily was the spitting image of her mother, with her fiery red hair and big brown eyes. "You go and get changed, and I'll be down in a couple of minutes to make some breakfast. Then we can go out and fly. Sound good?"
Lily nodded and then scurried out of the room to go and get ready. Carefully, Harry eased himself out of bed, so as not to wake Ginny, who was still asleep, and made his way over to the closet in the corner of the room, to find something to wear.
Five minutes later when Harry was dressed and entered the kitchen he found Lily sitting at the table dressed in her dark green Holyhead Head Harpies quidditch robes Ginny had been able to get made for her, with "Potter" written in gold letters on the back, using her connections as a quidditch commentator for the Prophet and a former team member. Lily had been thrilled when she had been presented with them the past summer for her birthday. Lily had worn nothing else for a week before Ginny was able to convince her out of them so that she could wash them.
"Alright Lily," Harry said as he came up beside Lily at the table. "What would you like for breakfast?"
Lily looked up from her Shooting Star broom, which she had also received for her birthday, like the rest of the Potter children had on their 9th birthday. Lily thought for a moment before answering. "Can I have bacon and eggs, please?"
"Of course, Flower." Harry smiled and went over to the cupboard and grabbed the eggs and bacon. Taking out his wand Harry lifted the Chilling Charm off of the items the he needed and put the rest back in the cupboard again. Bacon and eggs was Lily's favorite breakfast, Harry knew. Just as it was Ginny's. So it was a very popular thing for the Potter family to be seen eating in the morning, sometimes even for dinner.
The eggs were almost finished when Ginny walked into the kitchen, yawning tiredly, wearing her house coat.
"Morning Mum," Lily greeted getting up from the table to go and hug her mother. "Daddy is making bacon and eggs."
"So I can smell." Ginny smiled, walking over to where Harry stood beside the stove. Harry wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her on the forehead.
"Did you have a good sleep?" Harry asked, slipping the eggs onto three plates that were already loaded with bacon and toast and brought them over to the table.
"Very much so, thank-you," Ginny answered as she took a seat at the table. "I was surprised you were up so early, though. I thought you might have wanted to sleep in a bit, after such a busy week at the Aurors office."
Harry laughed quietly. "Naw, Lily-Flower here decided that we should get as much of an early start on the day as possible so that we have more time to fly."
Ginny swallowed the piece of toast, and then said rather seriously. "It's a good thing we have such a smart daughter, Harry. Otherwise you could have wasted time that could've otherwise been spent in the air." Ginny looked at Lily, who stuck her tongue out at her mother cheekily, aware that her mother was teasing her. Harry just laughed at the banter.
When they had finished eating and cleaning up twenty minutes later, Harry and Lily went outside, while Ginny went to get some work done around the house. The Potter home resided in a country area surrounded by a wood. There weren't any other houses within a two mile radius, and the forest protects the house from being seen by any Muggles that might happen to pass by. This made it a perfectly safe for them to flying without them risking being seen, just as long as they didn't fly too high of course. That had been one of the things Harry and Ginny had agreed they had to be able to do when they were looking for a house.
"Come on Daddy!" Lily called as she ran ahead to the open area that was commonly used when the Potters (and the Weasleys, when they came over) went flying.
"Yeah Lily, I'm coming, I'm coming!" Harry assured, making his way over, slightly quicker, to where Lily now stood with hands on her hips. "You're slow." Lily scowled playfully at him.
"I'm old." Harry stated, with a smile.
Lily frowned. "You're not that old."
"I'm not?" Harry gasped, faking astonishment.
"Nope," Lily replied simply.
"Then who is old to you?"
Lily looked thoughtful for a moment, then, "Uncle Bill is old." She answered wisely.
Harry laughed; he couldn't wait to tell Bill that at the next family gathering. "You're right," Harry said to his daughter. "Uncle Bill is old, isn't he?"
Lily nodded. "Can we fly now?"
"Sure, hop on your broom, and let's go."
Once in the air Lily immediately began to race around the yard. Harry hovered where he was for a bit, watching his daughter as she flew. She was a natural. Flying came to her like a second nature, much like it had with Harry the first time he flew. He watch as Lily zigzagged through the air, doing little dives her and there. She looked so happy to be flying again. Her face was lit up and her eyes shining.
"Daddy, that's not flying, that's just floating!" It seemed that Lily had just realized that her father hadn't been doing anything.
Harry smiled to himself, and took off after her, chasing her around the yard. "Daddy!" Lily shrieked happily as she dodged her father again.
They flew like that most of the morning, just chasing each other around and goofing off. Later Harry brought out one of the quaffles that they had in the shed, and he and Lily played a game of Keep-Away. Lily did very well in this. Although, she did have a bit of an upper-hand, seeing as Harry had to careful so as not to knock Lily off of her broom when he was reaching to get the quaffle from her. Lily, on the other hand, seemed to have no worries what-so-ever of possible knocking her father off of his broom. In fact, Harry could've sworn that she actually was trying to throw him off. She actually almost succeeded at one point, to, when she intercepted him from the side and ripped the quaffle way from Harry, causing him to almost lose his balance on the broom.
"Hey Lils, are you trying to knock your old man off of his broom?" Harry called out to his daughter.
"No," Lily answered, as she turned around to face him, a rather cheeky grin on her face. "I was just trying to get the quaffle. It's your fault that your balance sucks!" With that Lily took off again. Harry laughed; she is so much like her mother. Then he took off again after his retreating daughter.
They continued to play for a while longer before Ginny called up to them. "Lunch is ready!"
"Alright!" Harry called back down to her. "We'll be down in a minute!"
Ginny nodded and started to make her way back over to the house.
"Come on Flower. You heard your mother. Lunch is ready." Harry called out.
"Okay Daddy!"
After they had put away their brooms and the quaffle in the shed, they went into the house for lunch, where Ginny had laid out a plate of assorted sandwiches, and three tall glasses of cold pumpkin juice. Harry reached out for a tuna fish sandwich and sat down at the table with his wife and daughter.
"So, how's the quidditch going?" Ginny asked as she reached to grab a penutbutter and banana sandwich.
"Really good," Harry answered. "Lils is a great chaser."
"Really?"
Harry nodded, smiling at his now blushing daughter, and took a sip of his pumpkin juice.
"Are you going to try out for chaser when you go to Hogwarts in two years, Lily?" Ginny asked looking at her daughter.
Lily shook her head. "I don't think so. I wanna be a Seeker. I think that would be more fun to do than chasing would."
"You want to be a Seeker?" Harry was a little shocked. He would have never thought that Lily would want to be a Seeker. To him, she always seemed far more interested in chasing.
"Mhmm," Lilly nodded as she chewed her ham and cheese sandwich.
"Well what do you say about me teaching you some seeker skills sometime?" Harry asked her.
Lily's eyes lit up and she swallowed. "Really?"
"Of course, I played Seeker for the Gryffindor house for four and a half years when I was at Hogwarts. I'd love to teach you a few tricks."
Lily looked confused. "Four and a half years?"
Beside him, Ginny laughed. "Yeah sweetie, four and half years. Your father tended to get into of trouble and it just so happened to get him kicked off the team."
"Hey!" Harry exclaimed. "You know that that was just Umbridge trying to get back at me, and trying to cause as much misery in our lives as possible!"
"I know, dear," Ginny soothed, patting Harry on the arm. "But let's face it, you beat the crap out of Malfoy. You would have gotten into a lot of trouble either way, maybe not enough to get you kicked off the team, but still a lot of trouble."
"True, but the ferret definitely had that one coming, from me and Fred and George." Harry shrugged, and then noticed his daughter staring at him in a wide eyed amazement at what she was hearing. Harry figured that this probably wasn't the best thing for his little girl to be hearing about her father, so he changed the subject. "So, Flower, what do you want to do after lunch?"
Harry loved the face Lily made as she thought hard about what she wanted to de with the rest of her day. She had her eye brows knit together, with her lips pursed and was looking up at the ceiling. The, all of the sudden, an idea hit her and her eyes flashed and features relaxed. "Can we go and see Teddy?" Lily asked excitedly, looking from her father to her mother, bouncing in her seat.
Harry and Ginny both laughed. "You miss Teddy already?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah, of course, he hasn't come over for three days!" Lily exclaimed to her parents.
"Has it really been that long?" Harry exclaimed in a shocked voice. Lily nodded and Ginny elbowed him hard in the ribs under the table. Harry gave her a sheepish grin and then turned back to Lily who was anxiously awaiting an answer. "Alright, Flower, I'll Floo Teddy and see if he minds us coming for a visit. How does that sound?"
Lily's face lit up again and she slid off of her chair and ran over to Harry and gave him a big hug. "Thank-you, Daddy!" Then she was pulling him out of his chair by the hand. "Go ask him right now!"
Harry could hear Ginny laughing quietly as he was being pulled out of the kitchen and into the sitting room where the fire resided.
After Harry Flooed Teddy and Teddy said it would be fine if they came over for the afternoon, Harry told Lily to change out of her quidditch robes and into some of her Muggle clothes, since Teddy's flat was in a small Muggle town near London. Harry watched as Lily squealed and excitedly ran up the stairs to go to her room to get changed. As Harry stared after his daughter he felt a pair of slim arms wrap around his waist from behind him. Turning his head, he came face-to-face with Ginny who had rested her chin on his shoulder.
"Hello," Ginny whispered in his ear and kissed his neck.
"Hello," harry greeted. He turned around in her embrace so that they were chest to chest and he wrapped his arms around her back.
"She is something else, isn't she?" Ginny sighed, laying her head on his chest.
"Yeah, she is."
He kissed the top Ginny's head just as the sound of Lily running down the stairs could be heard. A second later Lily entered, wearing a pair of jeans and a red jumper. "Come one let's go!" She said, pushing her parents toward the fireplace.
Yeah, Lily was something else, alright, Harry thought, and there was nothing about her he would change.
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Thank-you for reading. I would love to hear any comments you have on this story.