InsaneJournal

If pressed, Harry would admit that he had been avoiding his parents. It was awkward and uncomfortable; he had no idea what to say to them, especially seeing as he was, in fact, older than them. If he had had this opportunity a decade ago, this would be very different. But as it was happening now, I really didn't know what he was doing or how to react. That, coupled with the strain in his relationship with Ginny (a relationship that he had worked to fix in his own life and time once already), Harry put his focus and attention and time into his work, finishing his training with the security team here on board the Enterprise.

But that didn't mean that he was going to just walk right out of the mess hall or purposefully avoid Lily when he saw her after he gathered his food and was looking for somewhere to sit. So he headed over to her, smiled, and gestured to the seat across from her. "Er, mind if I join you?" he asked nervously.

Lily couldn't decide if they had just been horrible parents or if it was too awkward for Harry to want anything to do with herself or James, she'd decided not to push it and just give him space and all the room he needed.

Surprised when she saw him approaching her in the mess asking to join her, she smiled, "Of course you can," Lily grinned. "I would love it. How are you doing?"

Harry nodded and slipped into his seat, setting his tray on the table and nodding over at Lily - at his mother. "Busy," he said. "I'm finishing up my training with the security team, which is good. Not really used to using a phaser instead of my wand, but I guess I've got to do whatever they ask me to do." Not that he wouldn't still go for his wand first. No one was telling him that he can't do that.

"How about you? Have you been working or something?" How awful was it that Harry didn't even know what his mother (and his father) had been doing since they arrived on the ship?

"I imagine it is very different, using a phaser, do you know how they work?" She asked uncertain of what else she could ask, she didn't want to say the wrong thing and have him leave, it was strange not knowing how to talk to her own son.

"I'm still weighing my options, I may look into the research teams, it'd be a good place to learn more and I might be able to be of some use," she sometimes wondered if being here would ever feel comfortable at all. "Otherwise, it's been quiet, something I'm not very used to."

"They've been teaching me how to work it. It'd be better if I could just use my wand though," he said with a shrug. "Maybe I'll convince them before training's over to just let me do it the way I'm used to."

He poked at his food with his fork. "Yeah, it is pretty quiet. I keep expecting something bad to happen, but then again, that's the story of my life and not easy to shake the expectation." Harry laughed a little but then shook his head. "I'm sure you'd be good at the research team," he told her, even though he didn't really know that for sure at all.

“Maybe, but it is good to understand how to use their weapons, but we all would be more effective with our own tools,” she agreed with that.

“Has anything bad happened while you’ve been here? Or anything that would be considered more dangerous than just the sandstorm?” Lily was curious as to what else had happened thus far, but she’d been keeping to herself more than anything else lately. “Thank you, it could be interesting.”

"Since I've been here?" Harry repeated, then shook his head. "No, not yet. I just meant back home. It's been pretty quiet here, even with that sandstorm." He scratched the back of his head and glanced over at her. "Sorry I've been - absent. I could blame my relationship problems but that's half a lie."

Lily nodded, she was curious, and she understood what he meant. "Sometimes life is calm," although she often worried when things were too calm herself, she worried about what might be coming, but she was from the middle of a war.

"It's okay," actually it wasn't exactly okay, but she was understanding. "I'm not sure how any of us are supposed to handle or feel about their children being older than them, but if you want to talk about your relationship problems, I might be able to help."

Harry looked surprised at her offer, maybe even a little dumbfounded. "Oh, well, it's really just - we were pulled here from two different times," he told her. "Me and Ginny, I mean. When she's from, we were broken up but when I'm from, we're back together. So it's just hard for me because I've already gone through the break up and then us fixing things but she hasn't yet." He probably needed to stop dwelling on it, but he couldn't help himself.

"If you worked it out once, I'm sure you can work it out again," Lily smiled softly. "Molly and Arthur's daughter, she seems wonderful." Lily hadn't talked to her too much but had seen a few things, and she'd been curious about the other people from their world. "Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

Harry didn't know if that was true. "We're in different circumstances here," he said, trying not to look as pained about it as he felt. How much easier would all of this be if he had Ginny at his side? "So I don't know if it'll work out again." He focused on eating for a moment. "I may have proposed too soon and she may have said no." That was what happened in basic terms, though it was more nuanced than that.

Lily didn't say it, but she knew relationships that had survived a turned down proposal were a little bit rare, but not impossible. "Timing can be difficult when it comes to marriage." She said. "Do you think she wants to figure things out?"

"That's what we decided then," he told her. "And then, eventually - it took a while - we worked it out. The problem is, here, Gin hasn't had that same chance and space to figure anything out." He raced a hand back through his hair, mussing it up so that it stuck up a little at his forehead. "Sorry, you don't need to listen to my whinge about all this crap."

“It sounds like she’s going to need a little bit more time, and there is a lot to do here, so maybe it’ll be a good chance for both of you to really figure things out, even if it is the second time for you,” she offered. “You have nothing to be sorry for, I’m always here to listen, about anything you want to talk about.” That was probably the only thing she could do well as his mother, or at least that’s how she felt about it.

"Thanks," Harry found himself mumbling as he looked down at his tray.

When he looked back up at her, he was apologetic. "I - do want to say I'm sorry for - avoiding you. That's what I've been doing. And it's not because of you at all, it's because of me."

Lily wasn’t surprised to hear about him avoiding her, “It’s okay, I understand, this can’t be easy for you, and from what I’ve heard, I was here before with no memory of it which just isn’t fair to you.” Lily did get it. “James and I could have reached out more, I just don’t really know how to go about any of this.”

"No, it's not - " Harry looked pained as he tried to figure out what to say. "I don't know how to do this. I don't. I've always wanted to know you, and I should be happy and this should be so easy, but I don't have any idea what I'm supposed to say."

"I don't know either, what I'm supposed to say, how I'm supposed to act. I've wanted kids, I just haven't gotten to the point where it happens, and given our future, that adds another level that complicates it." Lily smiled softly. "Maybe we should just start as friends, maybe go to the holodeck for Quidditch, it's not really my thing, but I would love to make a go of it here."

"Yeah, the whole thing is complicated," he agreed. He pushed his food around a little bit again. "We don't have to play Quidditch. What are you - I mean, what do you like to do if not that?"

Lily wondered if it’d have been easier if she had arrived her after she’d had him, if that would make it easier but she doubted it. “I do enjoy playing chess,” she offered.

"Ah, yeah, chess is good. I mean, Ron - my friend Ron, Ginny's brother - is better at chess than I am, but we've had a few good matches over the years."

"Well, in that case, let's play chess, and maybe James and you can play Quidditch, I'm sure he'd love it," Lily smiled. "How many kids do the Weasley's end up with?" She couldn't help asking.

Harry smiled. "That sounds great," he said. And he really thought it did. At least, it was steps in the right direction. At her next questions, Harry laughed. "Uh, there were seven altogether," he told her. "Ron's my age and Ginny's the youngest. Uh -" And then, mostly because he wasn't sure what else to do, he rattled them all off. "Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny - uh - Fred died at the Battle of Hogwarts, but - yeah, seven."

Lily remembered the older kids, and she figured that was at least a start. "Seven? Well, they did always enjoy having the kids running around." She smiled but at the mention of Fred dying her eyes went wide and her smile faded. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered knowing that must have devastated the family, although wars had casualties, knowing that did not make them easier.

"It could have been worse," Harry said. Well, it was worse, but he didn't need to tell her everyone else who died too. At least not now as they were sitting in the mess hall eating together. "And we all did it because we knew what we had to do to get it to end. That's the important thing."

If there was one thing that Lily truly understood it was that, she was very well aware of what war meant and the losses that came with it. “Sometimes you just have to fight knowing you might not win, doing the right thing isn’t always the easy thing.”

"No, but it's still what you have to do." Harry supposed this his mother knew all about that, given her own circumstances and her death. He smiled a little bit, tightly. "I - should tell you though, Lily - er, mum? - that I'm really glad you're here. I'm really glad I have the chance to get to know you."

It was surprising to be called Mum, and the shock in her eyes followed by the genuine smile gave away a lot of the emotion behind how she felt about all of this. "I'm really glad I'm here too, to get this chance." She said looking down with a small blush.