A/N: Hello everyone! Here is my latest one shot as usual it can fit within my Harry Potter universe or stand alone. Hope you all enjoy and sorry as always for my grammar.
"JUST STAY OUT OF MY LIFE DAD!" Lily slammed the door in Harry's face and he wondered how it had come it this. He and Lily had always had a great relationship. Then everything changed last June when Lily came bounding off the Hogwarts express ecstatic about a boy. At first Ginny had teased him about not being ready to let go of his baby. He had thought that that was it, he was overprotective, and he didn't like his daughter dating. They had started arguing more.
After all Lily was only just turning fifteen this summer and this boy was a year older then her. Lily had pointed out to him how much of a hypocrite this made him. Ginny had been acting as peace keeper all summer. She had convinced Lily to bring this boy over for dinner. She had and it had done nothing to calm Harry down.
The boy in question had set off every internal alarm Harry had. In hindsight prehaphs he shouldn't have tried to forbid Lily from seeing him ever again; but what is a father to do when his baby girl brings home a rotten apple. Harry had consulted with his sons and his nieces and nephews no one like Seth. But Lily was determined, and so they had dealt with an entire year of Seth. Tomorrow night it would be Seth who escorted his daughter to the village's start of summer dance. Harry's only consolation was all of the other children would be there as well and could keep an eye on things for him.
Harry was working his way through the mountain of paperwork on his desk looking forward to a weekend at home with his family when there was a knock on the door. One of his senior Aurors Davis walked in looking unsure of himself. Harry smiled at the man, "Have a seat Davis, what's going on?"
"I don't quite know how to say this Harry or even if I should say this, or…"
"Davis just tell me what's bothering you."
"I was going through the applications for this summers internship program, and there was one name that I thought would be of particular interest to you."
"Whose application?"
"Your daughter, what should I do about this?"
"What do you mean what should you do about it?"
"Do we accept her because she's your daughter, or reject her because she's your daughter? How do we handle this?"
"Treat Lily's application just like you would any other applicant, weigh the pros and cons and deciede if you think she deserves to be one of our interns. Trust me when I say Lily would hate it if she thought being my daughter in any way effected her placement in the internship."
"Okay thanks Harry, we'll finish with the selection process and send out the owls on Monday."
Davis left and Harry couldn't help but feel sad, once upon a time his little girl would have told him she was thinking of becoming and auror. She would have mentioned she was applying for the internship. Harry understood that there would be more distance between him and his children as they grew, but he couldn't be okay with what was happening with Lily.
Harry spent the afternoon struggling to focus on his paperwork, and finally gave it up as a bad job. There was nothing he couldn't finish on Monday. When he arrived home, Ginny greeted him with a smile.
"You've just missed the kids love."
Harry pulled his wife into a hug, "Where have they all gone?"
Ginny sighed and snuggled closer into her husband's embrace, "James is at George's he has some sort of muggle prank item for them to wear to the dance tonight. Al is at Ron's Scorpius is coming to pick up Rose and Al was going to act as mediator between Scorp and Ron. Now that they've graduated Hogwarts and haven't broken up yet Ron is a bit worried about Scorpius dating his daughter. Lily went to meet Seth early."
"Did you know Lily applied for the Auror internship program?"
"No, have you two been keeping this from me?"
"No love, Lily kept it from both of us I didn't know until Davis walked into my office and told me this afternoon."
"This won't be forever love, Lily loves you everything will work out eventually."
Harry sighed, "I hope so I miss my baby girl Ginny."
Ginny pulled her husband into a hug, "Do you want me to stay here with you tonight?"
"No it's fine love; all your brothers will be here. Go enjoy a night with all the girls someone has to stop Hermione murdering Fleur and Audrey."
Ginny sighed, "Alright then, but if you need me I'm just a fire call away."
Harry watched his wife leave and felt the emptiness of his home weigh down on him. Fortunately for him all of his children still lived at home. But it pained Harry to think that in the next few years they would be leaving.
James had followed in his mother's footsteps and had become a professional Qudditch player. He had just finished his first season and had been signed back on for a second. Harry knew James, Fred, and Dominque were planning on looking for an apartment together this summer. Fred was working full time at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. He had quite the knack for inventing. Dom was making quite the name for herself as a photographer. She worked freelance mostly, but had recently had some of her work displayed in an art gallery.
Albus, Rose, and Scorpius had just graduated. Albus had been accepted into the healer training program at St. Mungo's. He was hopping to specialize in people with damage caused by dark magic. Rose, always her mother's daughter, had accepted a position as an apprentice to a well-known magical historian. Ron was just happy his baby girl's job wouldn't put her in any danger. Scorpius would be starting the Auror training program.
All of his kids were growing up so quickly. Hell, Teddy was getting married at the end of the summer. He and Vic were both settled in their jobs and were getting ready to take this very special next step together. It was a lot for a father to handle especially when it came on the heels of his daughter pulling away from him.
Harry loved all his children and his nieces and nephews and was so proud of the people they were becoming. But it was a little bittersweet to see them moving out into the world on their own.
Trying to avoid brooding Harry dropped his things in his office and made his way to the kitchen; there would be a hoard of Weasley men here soon and it was always good to feed them. Harry tried not to feel sad when he pulled on the apron Teddy had made him. The tiny painted handprints and the words 'world's best godfather' still made him smile. Although it seemed like only yesterday Teddy had gifted him this apron, really it was twenty years ago. Harry turned back to his chopping and soon heard the welcome sounds of the Weasley men entering his house.
Ron was the first to make it to the kitchen, "Something smells great in here Harry."
"Thanks mate, I just threw together a fry up for us all."
Soon enough all the Weasley men were sitting around his table and the raucous teasing was interspersed by the clinking a dishes and cutlery. Harry lost track of time as they caught up on who was doing what, whose children were grounded, and whose wife was making them sleep on the couch. It was just before nine when Harry heard his front door burst open. It was much too early for any of the children to be home from the dance yet and Harry rushed into the hallway to see Lily in tears rushing up the stairs. He followed her, but wasn't quick enough to stop her before she managed to magically bolt her door from the inside.
"Lily, what's wrong! Let me in Lily! What's happening?" Harry frantically beat at the door and got nothing but silence from inside Lily's room. Harry stormed down the stairs and found himself face to face with the Weasley's and most of the children from the dance. He held up a hand to silence them, "I don't know what's going on. Unless one of you saw something and know what the bloody hell is going on here, you should go back to the dance." The other adults gently herded the kids back out except for Colin who seemed determined to stay. Bill put his hand on Harry's shoulder, "Do you want me to go get Ginny?"
Harry shook his head, "No if she won't come out of her room I'll take the bloody door off its hinges."
Harry didn't miss the looks from the other Weasley men; they all clearly thought he had gone nuts. But Harry ignored them all summoned his tool box and stormed back up the stairs. He set about removing the door from its hinges. It was this that finally got Lily's attention. She threw open the door and Harry came face to face with one of the hardest things he'd ever had to see.
Lily stood in the open door way makeup running, a bruise blossoming on her cheek, looking absolutely heart broken.
"WELL GO AHEAD SAY IT!"
"Say what Lily?"
"SAY YOU WERE RIGHT. SAY SETH WAS NO GOOD. SAY I TOLD YOU SO."
"Lily Luna Potter, I have been your father for sixteen years. Do you really think I would say any of those things when you are standing in front of me looking this heartbroken?"
Lily shook her head and the next thing Harry knew his daughter had thrown her arms around his neck and was sobbing into his shoulder. Harry rubbed her back in the way that had always calmed her down when she was a small child. When Lily stepped back still sniffling a little she closed the door and warded it against eavesdroppers.
"Do you want to tell me what happened LeeLu?"
Lily sighed, "Just promise me you won't run off and kill Seth as soon as I tell you. I don't want you to end up in prison because I was stupid."
"You are not stupid Lily; sometimes we care about a person so much we don't really see the flaws."
Lily shook her head, "No I knew he wasn't the greatest guy, but he wasn't afraid of you, so I overlooked his bad traits."
"What do you mean he wasn't afraid of me?"
"I'm Harry Potter's little girl dad. I may not look at you and see The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, The savior of the wizarding world, the head of the auror department, but most people do. So guys were either terrified of me, or had this weird hero worship thing going on. Seth didn't care who you were and I liked that. Then tonight at the dance he got pushy. I'll spare you the details, but he wanted things to go a bit farther then I was comfortable with. He tried to force it, I hexed him he slapped me. And now here we are. Am I ever going to find a good guy dad? Someone who isn't going to be weird about who you are, who will like me for me? How did you know with mum?"
"I'm sorry Lily, if being my daughter ever made things more difficult for you. That was something I tried to spare all of you kids. Of course you'll find the right person eventually; you are an incredible young woman. It has made your mother and me so proud to see you grow up to be the woman you are today. As much as I hate to lose you, someday you'll find a guy who deserves you and you'll fall in love and get married. As for how I knew with your mother, I was a bit dense. It took me until I was sixteen to realize that I liked her, and then I spent the next nine months trying to talk myself out of those feelings. Finally I realized that whenever I imagined my future she was there. The night of the battle of Hogwarts when I thought I was going to die, your mum was the last thing I thought of."
"There's something else I need to tell you dad."
"What is it Lily?"
Harry tried to hide a chuckle as his daughter glared at him, "I'm pretty sure you already know dad. You are a terrible liar. But I'll tell you anyway. I applied for the auror internship program. I think that's what I want to do after Hogwarts."
"Well you should get the response back from the aurors on Monday. Auror Davis came into my office today and told me you had applied for the internship. I made sure to tell him he should treat your application just like everyone else's."
Lily threw her arms around her father again, "Thank you dad. I'm sorry about the last year as well. You're a great dad and I have not been a great daughter."
Harry smiled and kissed Lily's forehead, "You are a great daughter Lily all the time. I'm your father and I love you nothing will ever change that."
Lily stood up and looked at herself in the mirror, "I guess there's no going back to the dance tonight. I look a mess."
"I don't know I have a feeling there is a young man waiting downstairs to escort you back. Let me fix that bruise."
Harry bit back his desire to kill that boy when he saw the marks on his baby girl's face. Instead he focused on healing the wound. "There you go baby girl, you look absolutely beautiful."
Lily turned and quickly fixed her makeup in the mirror, and quickly pulled her hair back into place. Harry walked his daughter down the stairs and watched her walk out the door again. She got half way down the front steps when she turned, "Dad, promise me you won't go after Seth."
Harry sighed, "I promise Lily."
"Thanks Dad, and Dad, I love you."
"I love you too Lily Luna, have fun at the dance."
Harry watched his daughter walk away from him and was flashed forward to all the moments to come, her Hogwarts graduation, her first job, her wedding, the birth of her children. His daughter wouldn't need him in the same way she used to; but she would always be his little girl.