The second of the drabble requests
“Daddy, tell us a story!” Andy flung himself against Harry as Harry sat down on Andy’s bed.
“Ooof!” Harry pretended to have been knocked backwards from Andy’s weight, falling back as Andy giggled.
“Story, Daddy, please!” Andy said, peering into Harry’s face from his new perch on Harry’s chest.
“Okay, okay,” Harry relented with exaggerated reluctance as he sat up, keeping one arm around Andy before he could comfortably settle Andy in his lap.
Harry looked to where Emily was sitting on the floor next to Hermione. “Well, Princess, what kind of story do you want to hear?”
“A story about you, Daddy,” Andy announced.
“Yes, Daddy, tell us a story about you,” Emily nodded decisively.
“All right, how about the story about how I defeated a dragon?” Harry suggested, since the story-somewhat embellished-of the First Task was one of the kids’ favorites.
Andy shook his head.
“Okay, how about the story of Mummy and I riding the hippogriff?” Harry suggested.
Andy shook his head again and Emily chimed in, “No, Daddy, tell us a story from when you were little like us!”
“Yeah, a story of little Daddy!” Andy bounced on Harry’s lap.
“A story from when Daddy was little like you,” Harry repeated, stalling for time.
He looked from Emily’s smiling face turned up so trustingly to his to Andy, snuggled in his lap. They were so young, so… happy… When he had been their age…
Memories-images he usually deliberately tried to suppress-flashed through his mind.
He thought of a 6 year old boy shrieking in protest and terror as he was shoved into a closet under the stairs in punishment for some long-forgotten infraction.
A little boy whimpering in the darkness of a closet, his face on the floor as close to the sliver of light visible beneath the door as possible, and then finally falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion.
A birthday party for Dudley-he couldn’t remember which birthday as they blended together in his mind-where he’d been surrounded by Dudley and his bullying friends as they pushed him around, laughing harder with every time he’d fallen to the ground. Only to be scolded later by Aunt Petunia for having gotten his clothes so dirty while Dudley smirked in the background.
A day when he’d somehow gotten to accompany Dudley to the park and he’d wandered off alone-since his aunt certainly didn’t care-and watched as the other kids played. Seeing one little boy, a few years younger than him as he looked to be around 4, falling and scraping his knee and being immediately picked up and soothed by his mother. Oddly, Harry could still remember clearly what that little boy had looked like-the tousled golden-brown hair, small nose, and blue eyes-and his mother too-with darker brown hair but the same blue eyes as her son-but more than that, he remembered the expression on the mother’s face as she’d cleaned and kissed the scraped knee, the love in the mother’s arms as she’d picked her son up to carry him away.
A boy who had spent endless hours growing up imagining not adventures in exotic, magical places but more prosaic imaginings of his mother and father being alive and well, loving him and playing with him and comforting him.
“Daddy!” Harry blinked back to reality at Andy’s protesting little wriggle to realize that he had unconsciously tightened his arms around Andy and was now holding Andy too closely for comfort. He loosened his hold on his son, trying to forcibly banish the memories to the corner of his mind.
“Daddy, you promised to tell us a story,” Emily reminded him.
He pressed a kiss to Andy’s tousled hair and managed a somewhat shaky smile for Emily-and sent up a silent prayer to the Fates that his children-his darling Emily-kin, little Andy, and baby Sabrina asleep in her crib in the nursery next door-could always be as happy and secure as they were now.
A story from his own childhood-any words stuck in his throat. He supposed he could make something up but somehow, his imagination failed him there.
“Once upon a time,” Hermione began, “A very, very long time ago, there was a little boy named Harry Potter.”
“Hey! I’m not that old!” he protested on cue, taking the hint in Hermione’s emphasis, making Emily and Andy giggle.
“Very old Daddy!” Andy cried gleefully.
“Young Daddy,” Harry corrected his son, putting on an exaggeratedly injured expression for Emily’s benefit and was rewarded by her grin.
“A long time ago, there was a little boy named Harry Potter,” Hermione repeated and Emily and Andy both calmed, turning their faces towards her. “Little Harry had no Mummy and Daddy because a very bad wizard had taken them away so Harry lived with his aunt and uncle in a little town not very far from here. Harry’s aunt and uncle were not very nice to him so Harry was not very happy.”
Harry caught Hermione’s eye, thanking her with a look, for stepping in to tell at least this party of his story, and she gave him a slight smile of understanding.
He let out his breath and took up the reins of the story. “And one day, Harry had gone to the park and had wandered away from his aunt and cousin. He watched the other little boys and girls playing and then going home with their own mummies and daddies and he decided that he was going to go away and see if he could find a mummy and daddy of his own who would take care of him and be nice to him.”
He managed a slight smile, feeling a little heartened at the wide-eyed fascination on Emily’s face. Hard as it was for him to remember and talk about those days, he was here, now, with his children and the scared, unhappy little boy he had been was long-gone.
“So Harry started walking until it got dark outside. It was a little scary since Harry had never been outside alone in the dark before but Harry was a brave little boy.” He saw Hermione smother a smile at this that he ignored as he went on. So he was exaggerating his courage at the time but he was permitted a little immodesty before his children, wasn’t he? “But soon, Harry got tired and hungry and he realized he didn’t have anywhere to go. So finally, Harry decided to go back to his aunt and uncle’s house. His aunt and uncle put Harry to bed without any supper as punishment and that night, Harry was hungry and so lonely that he cried himself to sleep.” Harry deliberately left out the detail that his uncle had hit him first before shoving him into the closet under the stairs-but those were the details he would never speak about, certainly not to his children.
“Daddy cried?” Andy looked as disturbed as if it had never occurred to him that his Daddy could cry, which was probably true, Harry thought.
Emily scrambled up to her feet and came over to hug Harry. “Don’t be sad, Daddy,” she said, patting his cheek gently with her small hand. “The story has a happy ending, doesn’t it, Daddy?”
He caught Emily’s small hand in his and pressed a kiss to her temple, feeling as if his heart might just burst from the love he felt for this darling daughter of his at this moment. “Yes, the story has a happy ending, because it wasn’t very long after this that everything changed for Harry forever.” Okay, so it had been more than three years after this particular incident that the first letter from Hogwarts had arrived but Harry thought he could be forgiven the exaggeration. “It started with a simple letter in the mail and then more and more letters came until it looked like a snow storm of letters and then the most magical thing of all happened. A friendly giant came and knocked down the door and this giant told Harry that he was a wizard and would be going to a magical school to learn about spells and charms and potions.”
“And the giant was Hagrid,” Emily piped up.
Harry exchanged a smile with Hermione. “Yes, the giant was Hagrid.”
“And then Daddy went to Hogwarts,” Emily prompted.
“Yes, Daddy went to Hogwarts,” Harry agreed. “Daddy went to Hogwarts and he finally got to make friends with other little boys and girls-”
“Like Uncle Ron!” Emily inserted.
“Yes, like Uncle Ron, and after a little while, Daddy also made friends with a girl with bushy brown hair who loved to read and loved to tell people what to do even more,” he finished with a teasing grin at Hermione.
Emily giggled. “Daddy, that’s not a nice thing to say about Mummy!”
“Daddy should remember that Mummy is sitting right here and still has her wand with her,” Hermione said in a mock threatening tone.
Harry promptly pretended to duck behind Andy’s small form. “Andy will protect Daddy, won’t you, Andy?”
Andy laughed. “Yes, Daddy.”
“So Harry went to school and he made friends with Uncle Ron and Mummy and together, they had a lot of adventures and learned a lot of things. But the best part of the story,” Harry went on, his voice softening, “was that because of all this, Harry finally had people who were nice to him and cared about him. And that was really all that little Harry had ever wanted when he was at his aunt and uncle’s house. So in the end, Harry got everything he’d ever wanted,” he ended the story with a smile.
“And then Daddy married Mummy!” Emily inserted, having clearly decided that the story shouldn’t end just yet.
“Yes, then Daddy realized that he loved Mummy,” Harry said, giving in to continue the story, or at least, give it something of an epilogue. “And Daddy and Mummy got married and they had two little pumpkins named Emily and Andy-”
“That’s me!” Andy squealed.
“And a new little baby named Sabrina,” Harry continued.
“And then Daddy and Mummy and all their babies lived happily ever after,” Hermione finished. “And now, I think it’s time for you kids to go to sleep.”
“But I’m not sleepy,” Andy protested.
“And I’m a big girl so I shouldn’t need to go to sleep yet,” Emily joined in.
“Come on, Andy-boy, into bed,” Harry said, standing and pretending to half-wrestle Andy under the covers before he tucked the blankets in around his son. “Now just close your eyes and think about sleep. Good night, Andy,” he finished, dropping a kiss on his cheek.
“Good night, little man,” Hermione said, passing a caressing hand down Andy’s hair.
“G’night, Mummy. Night, Daddy. Night, Em’ly,” Andy mumbled as he closed his eyes.
“Night, Andy,” Emily responded, giving a light pat to the bump under the blanket that was Andy’s foot.
Harry bit back a smile. Really, his Emily was the most adorable thing in the world when she played big sister. “Okay, up you go,” he said, swinging Emily up in his arms.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you for the story, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, Emily-kin.”
“And now, into bed,” Hermione added.
Harry bent over Emily’s bed, releasing his hold on her body and on cue, she unwrapped her arms from around his neck so she fell onto her bed, landing with a bounce and a giggle. Harry tucked her into bed and then bent to kiss her forehead only to be trapped by Emily, who flung her arms up around his neck to hold him in place for a smacking kiss on his cheek. “Love you, Daddy.”
His heart melted. “I love you too, Emily. Good night.”
“Sweet dreams, love,” Hermione said, also giving Emily a kiss on the forehead.
“G’night, Mummy. Love you.”
Hermione smiled and smoothed Emily’s hair in a light caress and then slipped her arm around Harry’s waist as they left Emily’s room, closing the door softly behind them.
Out in the hall, Hermione studied Harry’s face. She knew that the harsh details of the way his aunt and uncle had treated him was one thing about Harry she didn’t know, suspected the truth of those years was something she would never learn. She had a vague picture of what his childhood years must have been like, mostly from what she had pieced together from the few things he’d let slip over the years, and even the little she knew was enough to make her detest Harry’s aunt and uncle with an intensity that did not bode well for their continued health if she ever met them. As for tonight’s story about his trying to run away, she knew it was true-had seen it in the shadows in his eyes, the lines around his mouth as he spoke-and she could only guess at the darker details that she knew Harry had left out of his severely-edited tale.
She felt a sudden surge of protective tenderness and abruptly turned to wrap her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder for a minute and just breathing in his familiar scent before she turned her face up to look at him.
“I love you,” she told him.
The corners of his lips curved upwards, the last, lingering shadows clearing from his eyes. “I know.”
“You sound very sure of yourself, Mr. Potter,” she teased.
His smile deepened. “Of course I’m sure. Remember the story? The little boy Harry Potter grew up, married the love of his life, and lived happily ever after.”
She laughed softly. “But Harry Potter’s story isn’t over yet.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “And that’s the best part of the story.”
And then he kissed her, softly, tenderly.
And she thought, this wasn’t happily-ever-after. This was reality. And it was better than happily ever after…
~The End~
(But only of this particular fic-- not of Harry Potter's real love story.) :-)
Coming up tomorrow- more of daddy!Harry, for philstar22.
“Ooof!” Harry pretended to have been knocked backwards from Andy’s weight, falling back as Andy giggled.
“Story, Daddy, please!” Andy said, peering into Harry’s face from his new perch on Harry’s chest.
“Okay, okay,” Harry relented with exaggerated reluctance as he sat up, keeping one arm around Andy before he could comfortably settle Andy in his lap.
Harry looked to where Emily was sitting on the floor next to Hermione. “Well, Princess, what kind of story do you want to hear?”
“A story about you, Daddy,” Andy announced.
“Yes, Daddy, tell us a story about you,” Emily nodded decisively.
“All right, how about the story about how I defeated a dragon?” Harry suggested, since the story-somewhat embellished-of the First Task was one of the kids’ favorites.
Andy shook his head.
“Okay, how about the story of Mummy and I riding the hippogriff?” Harry suggested.
Andy shook his head again and Emily chimed in, “No, Daddy, tell us a story from when you were little like us!”
“Yeah, a story of little Daddy!” Andy bounced on Harry’s lap.
“A story from when Daddy was little like you,” Harry repeated, stalling for time.
He looked from Emily’s smiling face turned up so trustingly to his to Andy, snuggled in his lap. They were so young, so… happy… When he had been their age…
Memories-images he usually deliberately tried to suppress-flashed through his mind.
He thought of a 6 year old boy shrieking in protest and terror as he was shoved into a closet under the stairs in punishment for some long-forgotten infraction.
A little boy whimpering in the darkness of a closet, his face on the floor as close to the sliver of light visible beneath the door as possible, and then finally falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion.
A birthday party for Dudley-he couldn’t remember which birthday as they blended together in his mind-where he’d been surrounded by Dudley and his bullying friends as they pushed him around, laughing harder with every time he’d fallen to the ground. Only to be scolded later by Aunt Petunia for having gotten his clothes so dirty while Dudley smirked in the background.
A day when he’d somehow gotten to accompany Dudley to the park and he’d wandered off alone-since his aunt certainly didn’t care-and watched as the other kids played. Seeing one little boy, a few years younger than him as he looked to be around 4, falling and scraping his knee and being immediately picked up and soothed by his mother. Oddly, Harry could still remember clearly what that little boy had looked like-the tousled golden-brown hair, small nose, and blue eyes-and his mother too-with darker brown hair but the same blue eyes as her son-but more than that, he remembered the expression on the mother’s face as she’d cleaned and kissed the scraped knee, the love in the mother’s arms as she’d picked her son up to carry him away.
A boy who had spent endless hours growing up imagining not adventures in exotic, magical places but more prosaic imaginings of his mother and father being alive and well, loving him and playing with him and comforting him.
“Daddy!” Harry blinked back to reality at Andy’s protesting little wriggle to realize that he had unconsciously tightened his arms around Andy and was now holding Andy too closely for comfort. He loosened his hold on his son, trying to forcibly banish the memories to the corner of his mind.
“Daddy, you promised to tell us a story,” Emily reminded him.
He pressed a kiss to Andy’s tousled hair and managed a somewhat shaky smile for Emily-and sent up a silent prayer to the Fates that his children-his darling Emily-kin, little Andy, and baby Sabrina asleep in her crib in the nursery next door-could always be as happy and secure as they were now.
A story from his own childhood-any words stuck in his throat. He supposed he could make something up but somehow, his imagination failed him there.
“Once upon a time,” Hermione began, “A very, very long time ago, there was a little boy named Harry Potter.”
“Hey! I’m not that old!” he protested on cue, taking the hint in Hermione’s emphasis, making Emily and Andy giggle.
“Very old Daddy!” Andy cried gleefully.
“Young Daddy,” Harry corrected his son, putting on an exaggeratedly injured expression for Emily’s benefit and was rewarded by her grin.
“A long time ago, there was a little boy named Harry Potter,” Hermione repeated and Emily and Andy both calmed, turning their faces towards her. “Little Harry had no Mummy and Daddy because a very bad wizard had taken them away so Harry lived with his aunt and uncle in a little town not very far from here. Harry’s aunt and uncle were not very nice to him so Harry was not very happy.”
Harry caught Hermione’s eye, thanking her with a look, for stepping in to tell at least this party of his story, and she gave him a slight smile of understanding.
He let out his breath and took up the reins of the story. “And one day, Harry had gone to the park and had wandered away from his aunt and cousin. He watched the other little boys and girls playing and then going home with their own mummies and daddies and he decided that he was going to go away and see if he could find a mummy and daddy of his own who would take care of him and be nice to him.”
He managed a slight smile, feeling a little heartened at the wide-eyed fascination on Emily’s face. Hard as it was for him to remember and talk about those days, he was here, now, with his children and the scared, unhappy little boy he had been was long-gone.
“So Harry started walking until it got dark outside. It was a little scary since Harry had never been outside alone in the dark before but Harry was a brave little boy.” He saw Hermione smother a smile at this that he ignored as he went on. So he was exaggerating his courage at the time but he was permitted a little immodesty before his children, wasn’t he? “But soon, Harry got tired and hungry and he realized he didn’t have anywhere to go. So finally, Harry decided to go back to his aunt and uncle’s house. His aunt and uncle put Harry to bed without any supper as punishment and that night, Harry was hungry and so lonely that he cried himself to sleep.” Harry deliberately left out the detail that his uncle had hit him first before shoving him into the closet under the stairs-but those were the details he would never speak about, certainly not to his children.
“Daddy cried?” Andy looked as disturbed as if it had never occurred to him that his Daddy could cry, which was probably true, Harry thought.
Emily scrambled up to her feet and came over to hug Harry. “Don’t be sad, Daddy,” she said, patting his cheek gently with her small hand. “The story has a happy ending, doesn’t it, Daddy?”
He caught Emily’s small hand in his and pressed a kiss to her temple, feeling as if his heart might just burst from the love he felt for this darling daughter of his at this moment. “Yes, the story has a happy ending, because it wasn’t very long after this that everything changed for Harry forever.” Okay, so it had been more than three years after this particular incident that the first letter from Hogwarts had arrived but Harry thought he could be forgiven the exaggeration. “It started with a simple letter in the mail and then more and more letters came until it looked like a snow storm of letters and then the most magical thing of all happened. A friendly giant came and knocked down the door and this giant told Harry that he was a wizard and would be going to a magical school to learn about spells and charms and potions.”
“And the giant was Hagrid,” Emily piped up.
Harry exchanged a smile with Hermione. “Yes, the giant was Hagrid.”
“And then Daddy went to Hogwarts,” Emily prompted.
“Yes, Daddy went to Hogwarts,” Harry agreed. “Daddy went to Hogwarts and he finally got to make friends with other little boys and girls-”
“Like Uncle Ron!” Emily inserted.
“Yes, like Uncle Ron, and after a little while, Daddy also made friends with a girl with bushy brown hair who loved to read and loved to tell people what to do even more,” he finished with a teasing grin at Hermione.
Emily giggled. “Daddy, that’s not a nice thing to say about Mummy!”
“Daddy should remember that Mummy is sitting right here and still has her wand with her,” Hermione said in a mock threatening tone.
Harry promptly pretended to duck behind Andy’s small form. “Andy will protect Daddy, won’t you, Andy?”
Andy laughed. “Yes, Daddy.”
“So Harry went to school and he made friends with Uncle Ron and Mummy and together, they had a lot of adventures and learned a lot of things. But the best part of the story,” Harry went on, his voice softening, “was that because of all this, Harry finally had people who were nice to him and cared about him. And that was really all that little Harry had ever wanted when he was at his aunt and uncle’s house. So in the end, Harry got everything he’d ever wanted,” he ended the story with a smile.
“And then Daddy married Mummy!” Emily inserted, having clearly decided that the story shouldn’t end just yet.
“Yes, then Daddy realized that he loved Mummy,” Harry said, giving in to continue the story, or at least, give it something of an epilogue. “And Daddy and Mummy got married and they had two little pumpkins named Emily and Andy-”
“That’s me!” Andy squealed.
“And a new little baby named Sabrina,” Harry continued.
“And then Daddy and Mummy and all their babies lived happily ever after,” Hermione finished. “And now, I think it’s time for you kids to go to sleep.”
“But I’m not sleepy,” Andy protested.
“And I’m a big girl so I shouldn’t need to go to sleep yet,” Emily joined in.
“Come on, Andy-boy, into bed,” Harry said, standing and pretending to half-wrestle Andy under the covers before he tucked the blankets in around his son. “Now just close your eyes and think about sleep. Good night, Andy,” he finished, dropping a kiss on his cheek.
“Good night, little man,” Hermione said, passing a caressing hand down Andy’s hair.
“G’night, Mummy. Night, Daddy. Night, Em’ly,” Andy mumbled as he closed his eyes.
“Night, Andy,” Emily responded, giving a light pat to the bump under the blanket that was Andy’s foot.
Harry bit back a smile. Really, his Emily was the most adorable thing in the world when she played big sister. “Okay, up you go,” he said, swinging Emily up in his arms.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you for the story, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, Emily-kin.”
“And now, into bed,” Hermione added.
Harry bent over Emily’s bed, releasing his hold on her body and on cue, she unwrapped her arms from around his neck so she fell onto her bed, landing with a bounce and a giggle. Harry tucked her into bed and then bent to kiss her forehead only to be trapped by Emily, who flung her arms up around his neck to hold him in place for a smacking kiss on his cheek. “Love you, Daddy.”
His heart melted. “I love you too, Emily. Good night.”
“Sweet dreams, love,” Hermione said, also giving Emily a kiss on the forehead.
“G’night, Mummy. Love you.”
Hermione smiled and smoothed Emily’s hair in a light caress and then slipped her arm around Harry’s waist as they left Emily’s room, closing the door softly behind them.
Out in the hall, Hermione studied Harry’s face. She knew that the harsh details of the way his aunt and uncle had treated him was one thing about Harry she didn’t know, suspected the truth of those years was something she would never learn. She had a vague picture of what his childhood years must have been like, mostly from what she had pieced together from the few things he’d let slip over the years, and even the little she knew was enough to make her detest Harry’s aunt and uncle with an intensity that did not bode well for their continued health if she ever met them. As for tonight’s story about his trying to run away, she knew it was true-had seen it in the shadows in his eyes, the lines around his mouth as he spoke-and she could only guess at the darker details that she knew Harry had left out of his severely-edited tale.
She felt a sudden surge of protective tenderness and abruptly turned to wrap her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder for a minute and just breathing in his familiar scent before she turned her face up to look at him.
“I love you,” she told him.
The corners of his lips curved upwards, the last, lingering shadows clearing from his eyes. “I know.”
“You sound very sure of yourself, Mr. Potter,” she teased.
His smile deepened. “Of course I’m sure. Remember the story? The little boy Harry Potter grew up, married the love of his life, and lived happily ever after.”
She laughed softly. “But Harry Potter’s story isn’t over yet.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “And that’s the best part of the story.”
And then he kissed her, softly, tenderly.
And she thought, this wasn’t happily-ever-after. This was reality. And it was better than happily ever after…
~The End~
(But only of this particular fic-- not of Harry Potter's real love story.) :-)
Coming up tomorrow- more of daddy!Harry, for philstar22.