Had he actually thought Ronald Weasley had been his best friend? Yes? He had long since realised that it wasn't true, and if it had ever been true... – Then those days were as distant as if they had come from another life.
Waving impatiently and rudely, with a sullen expression on his face, Harry ushered the bartender over. She knew his name. Who didn't know his fucking name? Besides, he'd been there often enough to know hers too, if he wasn't so fucking drunk.
The bartender looked at him sceptically, but poured him another – another double. The first few seconds he had a refill were the best of his life, again and again, but at the last drop his personal hell began. The music was far too loud and pounding. The dancers far too young. In general, when he looked around... not one person had even a wrinkle on their face. On the other hand, when he looked in the mirror... His hair was slowly turning grey and the bald spots were spreading. The first wrinkles had formed around his eyes, and they were there even when he wasn't smiling. He sighed and tried to wave the bartender over again, but now she ignored him.
He didn't want to whine at all – it couldn't be said that the ravages of time had gnawed at him. Women still twisted their necks when he walked past them. They whispered his name reverently, and each of them would try to strike up a conversation with him. Mostly they were surprised, couldn't quite believe it themselves, when he started flirting with them. At the first kiss they giggled like crazy. Harry had already tried everything, nothing could still cause a tingling sensation like Ginny had once done, until she too had been faded to normality. It had been a long time ago.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark figure hexing a young woman's drink. Someone was up to no good!
With an angry snort and curses that would have given many a heart attack, he approached the girl who was in the club with a friend of about the same age. "Stop, stop!" roared Harry as her hand gripped the glass.
She flinched and glanced around in surprise until she saw Harry Potter, rescuer in distress and especially of fair ladies, coming towards her.
He fired a curse at the needy man, but narrowly missed and he took flight. Harry didn't feel like running after it, instead he grinned insinuatingly at the girl. How old could she be? Already of age or not? Her long red hair flowed around her pretty face, which was dotted with freckles. Her nose was delicately built and laid above full lips that he would love to taste immediately. But he couldn't just kiss her. His hunger had cost him many a promising flirtation and even if the danger appealed to him, he didn't want to waste this chance under any circumstances. Harry had a certain type of woman he couldn't keep his hands off. She fit his dreams like a glove.
"Are you still going to thank me for saving you?" He smiled audaciously. Ginny had always emphasised how much she liked that smile.
Perkily, the girl grinned back. "I thought a hero could do without laurels." Her intense green eyes wandered around his trained body, lingering briefly on his belt. He knew he had won.
"You know my name. What's yours?" He grabbed her by the hands and pulled her onto the dance floor.
She stood on tiptoe and said in his ear, "Lily!"
That name brought back memories, but they were old and pale. Of his mother he had none of his own and his daughter – she had still been a crawling toddler when he had last seen her. He pressed his lips briskly to hers and pushed the rising thoughts aside. With adrenaline in his blood, he could best forget.
oOo
The door slammed behind them with a dull bang. Surely they had woken the neighbours, but Harry didn't care. His new conquest had proved to be a stroke of luck. Despite her youth, she knew what she wanted. When she kissed him, she never closed her eyelids and he could see the stormy sparkle in her eyes. He had never been kissed with such passion. Greedily, her hands ran over his body and nibbled at his shirt. She pushed him so hard onto the bed that he almost rolled over the edge. He could only save himself by holding on to her. With a sharp cry she collapsed on top of him and her red hair fell like a veil around their faces. The next kiss tasted even wilder than the last.
Harry became drunk on her confidence.
He sighed and watched as she sat on top of him, stripping off her top and bra with quick movements. Her breasts were small and round like Ginny's and he kneaded them. As if electrified, shivers flickered through his body where his bare skin touched hers. Lily clawed at his shoulders and threw her head back. But then, a second later, she forced herself to look at him, watching him lie surrendered beneath her. They shared a long look. Harry literally sank into her eyes and didn't push back to the surface until he felt his penis pressing against his trousers. Hastily he pulled his shirt over his head and got tangled in the sleeves because Lily ran her fingers along his thighs. He freed himself from his top with last grips.
She stroked the bulging area and elicited a happy gasp from him. With a determined expression that seemed almost sinister, she stood up and pulled his trousers and pants off his legs.
Why did she look so gloomy just then? Did she not like what she saw?
She bent and was about to enclose his penis with her lips when he made a plan.
He wanted her. Right now, right here. Once again he wanted to take her by surprise, as he had done in the first moment, and not only see her astonishment, but feel it. With an iron will and a dose of strength, he pushed himself off the mattress, swung himself to his feet and with two moves he had also freed her from her trousers. An expectant grin flitted across her face and Harry wanted nothing more than to wring it from her. Lily was to huff and puff with pleasure, scream if necessary, but she was not to smile. In her green eyes he wanted to see ecstasy and she should know that she owed it all to him. He had saved her.
Pruriently, he stroked along her thighs to her centre where he was met by moisture. Her heavy breath brushed his face. The tension between them grew immeasurably – here and now. Harry grabbed her roughly and threw her onto the bed with all his might.
The attack came out of nowhere for her. She still tried to cushion the impact on the soft mattress, spread her arms and clawed at the blankets. At last she looked at him with astonishment.
It goaded him up even more. He jumped after her and pushed her arms down, forcing himself between her legs. Her lips formed words but she made no sound. When he entered her and her warm flesh enveloped his penis, everything was forgotten. With every thrust, with every movement, she gasped and her body arched towards his.
Throughout the act, Lily looked him firmly in the eye without him having to ask her to. Not for a second did she break contact and it made him even more heated. She tensed and emitted several pointed cries. The next look was filled with bitterness, the origin of which Harry could not explain. He let go of her, as she did not seem to want him to, and finished the job beside her himself. Silently she contemplated his actions and when he came to lie beside her, sweaty and satisfied, she turned over and turned out the light.
A fitful sleep haunted Harry, though he felt more detached than he had in a long time.
oOo
"Lily?" There was a pounding on the flat door. "Lily, open up? I know you're in there!"
Sleepily, Harry rubbed his eyes and turned to face the woman he was looking for. "Who's that?"
Lily, hair tousled and an imprint of the pillow on her face, straightened up and pulled the blanket over her bare chest. She grinned wickedly as if she saw her moment of glory coming, "That's my mum!"
"Fuck!" Harry jumped up as if stung by a tarantula. "You're underage? Fuck, how could you -" He thought again of that one moment just before he had penetrated her when she had opened her mouth and closed it again. "You were going to tell me..."
She smiled maliciously. "Among other things."
"Get out of here!" He was beside himself. She had let him run into an open knife.
Lily grabbed her clothes and pulled them on makeshift. Another pounding sounded from the door. "Of course! I'm not used to anything else from you."
Before Harry could fathom the meaning of her reproach, she had fled the room and noisily opened the door.
"Lily, my goodness! I've been so worried," her mother's shrill voice came through to him louder now. "What are you doing here? You shuldn't fucking sneak off at night."
In a grave voice, she replied to Ginny, "I spent the night at Dad's."
oOo
Two months later
Ginny yanked the door open. Already the frantic ringing had made the visitor's impatience clear. "Oh Harry!" she groaned when she saw him standing there. "I haven't seen you for a long time. Neither have I, nor the children."
Harry bit his lip. "Can I come in?"
She gave him a nasty glare. "Depends. What do you want? I have nothing more to say to you."
"I know, but I'm here for Lily."
With a jerky nod, she let him enter. The house in Godric's Hollow, that they had bought and moved into together back then, seemed much brighter than in his memories. The winter sun shone through the large windows and was reflected off the white snow. The hallway was almost clinically clean. A shiver ran down Harry's spine.
From behind him, Ginny stepped closer. "So what happened that night when Lily had been with you?" she asked him. "I mean, why did she seek you out?"
Harry had to shrug. "I don't know. Does she need a reason to see her father?"
"Of course not, but it's strange. All her behaviour is strange lately," she muttered to herself.
"What do you mean?"
Ginny looked to him, annoyed. "You'd know if you'd ever bothered to be a part of her life."
He clenched his hands in his trouser pockets. "I'm trying now."
Her eyebrow went up. "Now? She's already seventeen!"
"I do not warm up to children..."
"You could have told me that before we brought three of them into the world," she growled. "Or at least before you disappeared for fifteen years..."
"Can I see her?"
Ginny sighed, "Of course. Lily's upstairs in her room. Go ahead, I'll give you the privacy."
With quiet steps he walked up the stairs and towards the last room and knocked on the door.
"Come in."
He pressed the handle. His fingers slipped away under the pressure and he had to wipe the sweat on his trousers. Lily lay sprawled on her bed, leafing bored through a thick book. Her head didn't lift, her gaze was fixed on the letters. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming. But you're not much for coming, are you?" she greeted him.
Harry's ears flicked. He hurried to close the door and hoped Ginny hadn't overheard any of her words. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about." He sat down on her desk chair, not believing his knees would support the weight of his body for that much longer.
"Do you want a repeat?" she asked cheekily, but in a hardened voice.
Harry had to swallow. "No, of course. You're my daughter."
She slammed the book shut. The snap of the pages made Harry wince. "But it took you a long time to realise this. Yet I stood and lay right in front of you. I didn't even hide my name from you. It was you who had insisted on calling me Lily, wasn't it?"
He shook his head and opened his mouth to say something, but she interrupted him. "Were you comparing my naked body to my mother's?"
"No!" it came out like a shot and blushes of shame rose in his cheeks.
"Why don't you admit it if you had to do it? Own up to it, be a man!"
"What do you want from me?", Harry heard himself ask.
Lily laughed. "I torture you with my presence, just as your absence has tortured me all these years. That's all I want, I've been doing just fine without you."
"But that contradicts itself! Either you have suffered from my absence or you have done well," he protested.
She gave him a nasty look. "The world is not all black and white. Don't take the play to tell me how to feel. Don't you dare, I warn you!"
Harry sighed and rose. She was mad. His daughter was insane! He was about to leave the room when Lily's voice held him back, "You're not going to want to leave again! No, we'll meet on Friday afternoon. There's a gala in the evening, I know you're invited. I'll be your companion. Before that, we need to buy me a passable dress."
"Lily..." he breathed.
She looked at him pitilessly and contemptuously. "Yes, Dad, you will do everything I say. Or do you want the papers to know what you've done to your daughter?" She smiled derisively. "And yes, I'm blackmailing you..."
It was only the beginning. He did what she wanted and listened to everything she said – for him… – and for her.