Chapter Text
--- Potters’ Home, July 2026 ---
Harry Potter was a little apprehensive, curious, and a little amused. He was sitting in his favourite armchair in the family room of his home.
Ginny was away for a couple of days, visiting Bill and Fleur, James was visiting his latest boyfriend, Al was at St. Mungo’s as part of his Healer training.
Lily and he had been watching a muggle movie on their DVD player, Star Wars. Lily had chosen it, it was one of her favourites, and Harry had gone along with her choice. But Lily had not been watching it, she had been fidgeting all evening, obviously with something on her mind. Once or twice, she seemed to be about to say something, but then subsided.
The credits of the movie ran their course and then the TV displayed the menu. Still Lily stared at the screen.
“The saying is ‘a knut for your thoughts’, but I’ll raise it to a sickle,” said Harry.
Lily shook herself, her reverie broken.
“it’s difficult to know where to start, Dad,'' she muttered.
“Well, let’s see if I can help. I don’t get the feeling that you’re pregnant…”
“Daaad, there’s no way!”
“You’re a young woman, even a decrepit old fart such as me can think of ways.”
“Well, I’m not, definitely, for certain, absolutely.”
“OK, well, some horrible curse or disease?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“OK, well most other things are more easily dealt with, so…?”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“I suppose we could start with that for the last two years you have come to work with me as often as you could to ‘watch the trainees’, or with the fact that during your recent holiday to Europe, you managed to visit and observe no less than four other countries’ auror training programmes.”
“How did you know about the visits?”
“Lily, I’m Chief Auror, I talk to not only my continental colleagues, but to colleagues in other parts of the world. The fact that my daughter has visited their facility just might be considered a topic of conversation.”
“Well…”
“Lily, I am going right out on a limb here, I think you want to tell me that you want to be an auror. Why not just say the words?”
“Dad I wanna be an auror,” she gabbled.
“OK, well now that’s in the open. Why the problem just saying it?”
“Over the years, dad, I have heard you and mum talking. I know some of the stuff you have had happen to you, and how it bothered mum. How worried she was. And I didn’t think me doing the same job would go down well with her. Would it be fair to ask her?”
“Lily, love, have you ever heard her ask me to stop? Sure, she worries, so do I. But the answer is that she’s never asked me to stop. She’s not unhappy that I am mostly a desk jockey these days. I worried when she was a professional quidditch player, there’s a very high injury rate at that level. But your mum’s stronger than you think. If you joined us, she would worry, that’s her job as a mum, but she would never stand in the way of what you want to do.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“What about you, dad?”
“Merlin’s beard, Lily, the idea worries me too. It’s not like the old days after the war. Then an auror’s life was risky and all too often short. And the things we had to do, and you may be asked to do, hurt us deeply. Lily, I have killed more than just Voldemort. When you do that, it takes something away from you. When you lose colleagues, friends, it hurts. When you have had to tell their nearest and dearest that their husband, wife, child, brother, sister won’t be coming back, it hurts. When I have had to send someone into danger…”
“I’ve seen some of what it does to you, dad, but…”
“I know, you still want to do the job. That was a question and a statement.”
“Yeah.”
“The job is very little like it was years ago. The training is more comprehensive, the number of organised dark wizards is very small. It’s far more like detective work. Oh, the danger’s there from time to time.”
“That’s fine, dad. Thanks.”
“Do you want to tell your mum, or shall I?
“I want you to, but I think that I ought to do it myself.”
“Is the right answer. Look, we can talk more about things tomorrow or later.”
“I’ll have to get the application form in, dad.”
Harry, spluttered, coughed, and then guffawed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was sitting in my office two days ago, when Ben Martin crashed through the door. You know how he can be when he's got something on his mind.”
"Ben's the Assistant Chief Auror? He's visited us with his sister. I remember him knocking stuff over and mum moving things to safety."
"That's him. Well obviously something had, shall we say, raised his excitement level."
“Hello, Ben, come in, Ben, have a seat, Ben.”
“Ahh, sorry Harry.”
“What can I do for you Ben? Are the Death Eaters back?”
“No, Harry, nothing like that. I was going through the applications for this year’s cadet intake, and I found this.”
Ben passed over a buff folder which Harry opened. "Lily Luna Potter" stared out at him.
“OK, Ben, and what?”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“Treat it as any other application, on second thoughts, ask one of the goblins if they could fake a duplicate with an alias or something. Nepotism may be an old wizarding tradition, but she should succeed or fail on her own merits. So that there’s never a valid suggestion that she got a place because of ‘well-placed’ relatives. And Ben, that means aliased from you too. Favours can backlash.”
“OK, Harry, seems like a good idea.”
“So, love, it’s not a surprise. I was waiting for this conversation.”
A cushion sailed across the room; Harry only just got a shield charm up.
“We’ll have to work on your offensive skills.”
“Thanks, dad, thanks.”
“Assuming that you are accepted, let’s review the thanks in a few months, and see if it still holds.
After an hour of general chit-chat, Lily announced she was ready for bed.
“I just have a couple of files to look at then I will find my bed too. Goodnight, love.”
“G’night, dad, love you.”
Harry reached for his briefcase, extracted a file, and then started reading.
“Godric, some of this is so very, very boring,” he thought. “But I suppose it comes with the job.”
Two hours later, he put the file back into the case, glanced at the clock on the mantel, and swore under his breath.
He picked up his two-way mirror and whispered, “Ginny Potter.”
After a few seconds, Ginny’s face appeared, looking very sleepy.
“Why are you calling at this time for, Harry? Is there a problem?”
“No, no, I just thought I should tell you that you were right about Lily and the aurors.”
“Thanks, Harry. I know I was right, but, honestly, couldn’t this have waited until the morning?”
“I suppose it could, just thought that you’d like to know as soon as possible.”
“Goodnight, or good morning, Harry.”
“Ermm, good morning and sorry, love.”
“Dammit,” he thought, “if I hadn’t called her then I should have, but as I called her, then it’s wrong.
Always thought that I would understand the logic after all these years, but no.”