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Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Ten—Father and Daughter
            “Here we are.” Harry turned around and smiled at his daughter. “What do you want to begin with? Quidditch? Or just flying?”
            Lily’s back stiffened, although she was still looking around the pitch Harry had put behind the house—really just a rough little meadow whose boundaries were the wards, and there was a place vaguely marked on the ground where he might put a Keeper’s hoop eventually—and Harry wondered what he’d done wrong. Then Lily turned to face him, pushing her hair out of her face. “I don’t really like Quidditch.”
            “That’s all right,” Harry said, relief bubbling over like champagne. “We don’t have to play it. We can just fly. Do you want to race?” He swung his leg over his broom, a Firebolt, and looked at Lily’s broom. It wasn’t the one he’d bought her. He didn’t recognize the model, in fact.
            Lily caught him looking and waved her hand. “This is a Starflare,” she said, and hopped onto her broom. “And yes, I want to race.” She took off as she spoke, and was already halfway across the pitch by the time Harry could blink.
            “Cheater!” Harry yelled, so happy to have something normal to talk about with his daughter that that almost lifted him off the earth all by himself. He zoomed after Lily, but his broom couldn’t catch hers. She looped in front of him, then hopped up and down on her broom, laughing. The wind whipped her hair around her face.
            The image brought up memories of Ginny, playing Seeker for Gryffindor, but they didn’t hurt as much as Harry would have expected. He found he could smile, even. He wondered if Malfoy would say better things about Lily if he saw her this way. She looked wild and happy and free. Nothing like the shrieking brat Malfoy thought she was.
            “Dad!”
            She could be loud, sometimes, but that was a different thing, Harry thought, and kicked higher so that he was hovering right behind her. “What is it, Lils?” he called.
            “You’re just sitting there staring at me, not trying to fly.” Lily turned and looked at him. Her face was strange, Harry thought. He half-thought it was trying to twist itself into a sneer because that was the expression she wore most of the time she was with him, but she was too happy to do it. “I know that you used to be a fabulous flyer. Mum said you were. Show me some of the things that you did.”
            Harry blinked. Then he said, “Well, I was a Seeker. So we need a Snitch.” He drew his wand and tapped one of the buttons on his robes. It flew up in front of him and hovered there, and Harry smiled, thought, and added blurring wings to it with one more flick of his wand.
            He looked up, and Lily had an even stranger expression on her face now. “What?” he added. “You don’t have to chase the Snitch. I just need something to focus on to remember some of the tricks.”
            Lily nodded, repeated, “I don’t like Quidditch,” to herself, as if it was a reminder, and then drew her broom out of the way.
            Harry cast a Random Flight Charm on the makeshift Snitch, a spell usually used for pranks in George’s shop. There was a buzzing noise, and the button zipped up and vanished. Harry set his broom to circling, keeping one eye out for it.
            God, he’d missed this, even if he was older now and had even more trouble focusing his eyes. And even if he was being watched by the one of his children he wanted most desperately to impress.
            Maybe he could do this, sometimes. Just have private Quidditch matches against himself. As Malfoy would probably say, who would it hurt?
            There was a gleam of brass from the right. Harry flung himself after it, finding that the broom responded just as well as it used to. He was used to riding slower brooms than the Firebolt now, and he knew how to compensate, how to loop and dart and lift and fly backwards when necessary. Around in circles, up around corners—the Snitch was trying to escape by flying in a spiral—and then down towards the ground.
            The grass was rising to meet him. Harry rolled over, reached out his left hand, nearly cornered the Snitch, and ended up frightening it into a dash from his left hand into his right. He sat back up, laughing.
            The thrill that ran through him felt like wind, and sunlight, and strength. Harry wondered why he’d stopped flying. He could manage a little bit here and there, couldn’t he? It wasn’t like it was such a horrible thing to give up a few minutes of sleep or leave work early, sometimes. And Malfoy would probably even approve, since it was something he was doing for himself.
            Then he turned around and saw the strange expression Lily was staring at him with.
            This wasn’t like the others. It didn’t seem to be a mixture of emotions. And then Lily turned her head around and started flying away, and Harry knew he had seen tears in her eyes.
            “Lily! Wait!” Harry let the Snitch go and flew after her. She was going pretty fast, and her broom was good, but she could only go as far as the edge of the wards. She didn’t try to fly away after that, either. She waited with her head bent down and her hair in front of her face, as if she could hide behind it. Harry brushed it gently out of her face.
            “You just looked so happy,” Lily whispered. “And I knew that you weren’t happy because you were out here with me. You weren’t even thinking about me. You were thinking about Quidditch and catching the Snitch. I just—you don’t need me here to be happy, do you? You would be happier if I was gone.” She sniffled, but didn’t wipe at her nose. Harry took out a handkerchief and gave it to her.
            “That isn’t true, Lily, no,” Harry whispered to her. He knew he had to handle this carefully, but once again he was bewildered. It was like setting out to fly a broom and then having what you were flying on and the landscape all change around you. “I wanted to show you something, but I was also enjoying flying. I like it. I just haven’t done a lot of it lately.”
            “You didn’t think about me,” Lily repeated dully.
            “I wouldn’t have done it at all if you hadn’t asked me to fly with you,” Harry said firmly. “It’s been a long time since I even flew, let alone played Quidditch. So thanks for asking me to do that.”
            Lily was silent for a long time. Harry gently touched her cheek, and then hugged her when she didn’t push him away.
            “Is something else bothering you?” he whispered. “Can you tell me? Is it hard to say?”
            Lily sniffled again, and then used the handkerchief hard enough to make her nose honk. “It’s hard to say, yeah,” she whispered. “Can we go down and go inside and have hot chocolate?”
            “Of course,” Harry said, his heart soaring almost as much as it had when he caught the Snitch. His daughter was talking to him and asking him to make something that wasn’t impossible for him to make properly; even Ginny had said that his hot chocolate was always good. “Here, let’s just bring the brooms down.”
            “I can do it myself,” Lily whispered, but she smiled at him, and the next second, she was diving at the ground.
            Harry followed, wondering if Malfoy would also tell him that he needed to stop being so sensitive. He would have winced at Lily’s comment ordinarily, and thought of it as another failure, because he hadn’t anticipated sounding like he was trying to fly her broom for her. Now, he just thought of it as something that of course she would say, a statement of fact.
            Maybe I should try being less sensitive around other people, too.
*
            “It’s like this, Dad.”
            Harry nodded to show he was listening. They were both sitting at his kitchen table with hot chocolate, with bits of marshmallow floating in it. That seemed to be a very Muggle way to make it, at least according to the people Harry had talked to, but Dudley had never demanded anything less, and Harry preferred it that way.
            And Lily had drunk over half of it and not said anything, so Harry was prepared to consider it a success.
            “You and Mum just got divorced, and you never asked me what I wanted.” Lily stared at him from under her fringe for a second, then looked away. “You never asked me if I’d prefer you to stay together.”
            Harry shook his head. It was true, but it was also something that had never occurred to him, just like so many of the things Lily said. “You would have preferred that we stay in that horrible relationship? Arguing all the time?”
            “You didn’t fight that much,” Lily said, tracing a finger over the tabletop. “You really didn’t,” she added, probably because she could feel the way Harry’s mouth was falling open even if she wasn’t looking up to see it. “You would just walk out of the room and go to work, and that was the end of it.”
            Harry sat there and thought about it, and in the end decided that, if he was old enough to admit he was confused about some of the things Lily was saying, he was old enough to admit that confusion.
            “I don’t understand, Lils,” he said quietly. “We fought a lot at first, and then we didn’t, it’s true. But by that time, we’d already decided that we were getting a divorce.”
            “I want you back,” Lily said. “And it’s not the same to have another house to go to. You listened to me, when you were there. Mum wasn’t so strict. We talked about having holidays together, not at the Burrow. I saw Al and Jamie when they came home, and now I’ll only see them some of the time. We all talked, and you listened to me.” She was on the verge of crying again, but she mopped angrily at her eyes, and the tears went away. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than you remember!”
            Harry bit his lip. He didn’t know how to suggest that it wasn’t his memory that was at fault. Lily had come up with a pretty picture that had never happened. Sure, they had holidays together and talked sometimes, but Harry was gone most of the time, and he didn’t listen enough to Lily even when he was there, and Ginny had always been the disciplinarian, and they celebrated plenty of holidays at the Burrow.
            But arguing about the past wasn’t what he wanted to do with the daughter he was just learning to respect and understand. So he said, as gently and clearly as he could, “Lils, both your mum and I are happier this way.”
            “But I’m not!” Lily flung the handkerchief on the table and looked as if she would push her chair back and storm off. “And you keep saying that I’m important to you like I’m supposed to believe it!” She planted her hands on the edge of the table and stood up, staring at Harry. “You need to get back together with Mum.”
            Harry hadn’t thought this would happen, never anticipated it. He never did with Lily, though. At least they were arguing about it instead of sitting there in silence, he thought, or storming out of the room. That was the only good thing about it.
            “I wish we hadn’t had to get divorced,” he admitted. “But your mum doesn’t want to get back together with me, and I don’t want to be with her.”
            That last part came out easily. Harry would have gone to the mirror and squinted suspiciously at his own mouth if he was alone, wondering if Malfoy had put a truth-telling enchantment on him. He’d never said it before, and not really even thought it.
            Lily, unable to see that this was a moment of revelation for him, flung herself back from the table. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “You wanted to ask me about what I wanted. That’s it. That’s all I want.”
            “I know, sweetie.” Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. He was getting a headache, he thought, or he would have one soon. That was what usually happened when he discussed Ginny and the divorce. “It’s not fair to you. I’ll try to go flying with you more often, if you’d like that, and listen to you when you ask for certain birthday presents. And you can go with Al and Jamie anywhere you want when they’re home for the holidays.”
            “But you won’t give me the one thing that would make me happy.” Lily stared at him.
            Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
            Lily went cold-eyed, and then said, “Is it because of Mr. Malfoy? Is he urging you to stay away from Mum? I remember that Mum was upset when Al and Scorpius became friends. She never liked the Malfoys.”
            “No reason for her to,” Harry murmured. He thought of mentioning that Lucius Malfoy had tried to kill Ginny, but he wasn’t sure that Ginny had ever told that story to Lily, and in general, she didn’t like him mentioning aspects of the past that were too dark in front of the kids. Harry could certainly understand that. “But no, Mr. Malfoy just wants me to stand up for myself. I’m doing it now, in fact,” he added, a little bewildered. He could remember a time when he was so beaten down that he would have promised to consider getting back together with Ginny, just to make Lily happy.
            Lily stared at him some more, and she said, “Mum said one time that you were probably gay.”
            Harry gaped at her. “What?” he finally asked. It came out so softly that he didn’t know if Lily heard him, but maybe she would have continued talking even without encouragement, because the words were spilling out of her now.
            “She said that you always wanted to spend time with Uncle Ron, and you spent all your time around male Aurors, and you never wanted to spend time with her. And you weren’t interested enough in her. And you never made comments about women that she expected to hear.” Lily didn’t know what half of that meant, Harry thought. She was just repeating things that she’d heard Ginny say.
            But that was hurtful enough.
            Harry had had no idea that Ginny thought he was gay. He took a deep, difficult breath. He’d decided that their marriage broke up because he was at his job so much, and because they didn’t know each other as well when they got married as they needed to. He’d never known that she thought anything like this.
            Ginny might have said it without thinking about it. She might have apologized and told Lily not to tell Harry immediately afterwards. Harry didn’t think she’d told Lily that because she really wanted to insult him or because she thought he would ever hear it.
            And Lily had said it out of anger, too, not because she meant it.
            He thought he heard Malfoy’s voice whisper in the back of his head. How many excuses are you going to make for them? How many times are they going to get away with this because you’re too idiotic to hold them to the standards they hold you to? How is it that they can be angry but you never get to?
            Harry clenched his fingers around the bottom of his mug and managed not to throw it. Now the git was invading Harry’s head when he wasn’t even here! On the other hand, maybe he’d left a charm that would speak his words to Harry when Harry started slipping from the strict road that Malfoy had laid out for him.
            Harry shook his head sharply. He’d never heard of such a spell, and he had no idea if it existed. What mattered was that Lily still waited for an answer, and she was trembling, as though she thought Harry might lash out at her.
            But Harry had no intention of making his daughter part of this conflict, even if Ginny had, and even if he did it accidentally, like he thought Ginny had. Harry just looked into Lily’s face and said softly, “I’m not gay. I did love your mother. But we aren’t getting back together.”
            “There’s no reason not to!” Lily leaned forwards. “It’s what I want, and what Jamie and Al want, too.” Her voice dropped. “Couldn’t I get what I want, just for once?”
            Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lily. I do want to make up for the things I did to you in the past. I’m sorry. But I can’t get back together with your mum.”
            Lily again whirled and ran to her room. Harry listened just long enough to hear the door slam, and then he cast a Silencing Charm that would travel with him and keep anyone from hearing his words unless he spoke directly to them. When he got to the drawing room, he cast another Silencing Charm on the door.
            Then he threw Floo powder into the fire. It seemed that he and Ginny had several things to discuss.
*
            moodysavage: Lily feels like no one listens to her anyway, so she should really be able to say whatever the hell she wants.
            polka dot: Amusingly, this is one of the few things she hasn’t complained about.
            delia cerrano: He wishes that he could be in love with her and everything could be just like it was. But he knows that it isn’t possible.
            BAFan: Actually, Ginny is telling the truth about what happened with Lily. But she and Harry are so awkward and uncomfortable with each other that it didn’t come across that way.
            And yes, you’re right. Lily is actually far more upset about the things that are behind this—the divorce—than the things she complains about. But she felt that no one listened to her when she tried to bring it up, they just started explaining it away.
            SP777: Harry is. I don’t think he would ever touch any of his children that way; he would be too worried about being abusive after what the Dursleys did to him.
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