'His skin is familiar as my own beneath my fingers. I listen to his breath, warm upon the night air, and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.' - Circe, Madeline Miller

I honestly feel a little pretentious starting off with a quote, but good god, Circe is brilliant and you all should read it.

Thanks, as always, to my wonderful friends who read this fic at its various stages of completion, who listened to me bang on about it when it wasn't working, who listened to me scream completely incomprehensible things when it was going well. I would, honestly, implode without them.

After this surprise Friday afternoon chapter, I'll be posting twice a week on the weekends - probably two chapters on Saturday morning unless that doesn't work out for us for some reason.

I hope you enjoy this story. I hope it isn't obnoxious to say it, but I'm quite proud of who these characters turned out to be.

The first time he saw her, he honestly wasn't sure that she was real.

And not in a romantic, his heart started hammering, the world stuttered to a halt under his feet, and everything ceased to exist kind of way. In a his painting talked to him and his fire turned green and a woman stepped out of it and he had to be fucking hallucinating, right, kind of way.

It was a figment of his imagination, a product of stress and exhaustion and under-caffeination.

And he had been under an inordinate amount of stress lately. He'd been working constantly, literally non-stop, since the general election had been triggered in January, had been travelling up and down the country and giving speeches and interviews and writing guest columns for the papers in an effort to whip up votes. He'd barely gotten any sleep for two months and then, come March, they'd won the election and finally, finally, taken Parliament back from the bloody Tories and then he'd gotten swept up in the insanity of the change in government and then, on top of it all, he was hit by the realisation of about a million things earlier that day when he first walked through the door of Number 10 — the realisation that the British people were trusting him to navigate them out of the most difficult political situation they'd been in in decades, that his government was teetering on a political knifepoint and he was going to have to remain on his guard all the time.

He knew that what they were doing, or what they were planning on doing, was the right thing — they wouldn't have been elected if it wasn't — but he also knew that there was going to be heavy opposition the moment he stepped through those doors, that he was going to have to fight tooth and nail to make sure that he was able to effect the change he'd promised the voting public if they were to put him in power.

The importance of this moment, of his government, settled heavily on him that morning when he walked across the pavement to Downing Street, but he'd squared his shoulders and straightened his spine as he crossed the threshold because he refused to be cowed by this.

He was determined, absolutely determined, to set all of this right.

No amount of political opposition or fear or difficulty was going to stop them.

They had a small margin for error, but James was confident. He believed in his team, his government. Himself.

But now, here he was, standing in his office in the middle of the night in his first night in Number 10 and his mind was making him see a woman stepping out of his fireplace and James' belief in himself started to waver a bit.

Because honestly. She wasn't real.

She wasn't real because she couldn't be real.

Except then she pulled out a stick and waved it over herself and the ash on her long cloak disappeared.

Except then she smiled at him.

'Prime Minister.' She moved the stick to her left hand as she stepped across the room, right hand extended for a handshake. He reached up and took her hand, but it was more out of shock than anything else, a force of habit.

Nothing was registering. Nothing.

Not even the dark, rich red of her hair or the vibrant, shining green of her eyes or the light smattering of freckles across her cheeks.

Nothing.

'I'm Lily Evans,' she dropped his hand after a moment and crossed the room to hang her coat on the hook beside his door. James watched, his mind still blank with shock, as she turned and he took in her outfit — a plain, normal-looking suit set. She looked —

She didn't look like someone that had just popped out of his bloody grate. She didn't look like someone who would be stuffing a stick into the interior pocket of her blazer.

And yet —

She seemed to understand the effect she was having on him because her smile widened a bit as she stepped forward and sat in the chair opposite his desk.

Before he really thought about why he was doing it, James mimicked her and sat in his own chair.

They sat quietly for a moment, this "Lily" staring calmly at him, her expression cool and even, while James' mind stuttered through a number of trains of thought before he finally decided which was the most pressing.

Or, at least, which line of questioning he thought he might be able to handle the answer to.

'Uh — I'm sorry, Ms Evans, but —' he tried to lean back in his chair, grin easily, but he was sure it was more of an awkward grimace. 'I'm not sure I know who you are.'

She crossed her legs, rested her folded hands on her knee, and James noted the hint of a smile tugging at her lips again. 'I'm the Minister for Magic.'

He blinked. Minister….

'I'm sorry — ' He shook his head as though the action would erase the nonsense she'd just fucking said. 'You're what?'

She smiled at him, a kind of soft, pitying smile. 'The Minister for Magic. Like the Prime Minister for Britain's wizarding community.'

'W-wizarding community?'

Her smile widened. 'Yes. We don't exactly go around publicising our existence, though, so it's perfectly natural to be confused.'

'But you —' James started shaking his head. 'You're just having me on. Ha ha, very funny, which one of my stupid friends thought this would be hilarious?'

He grabbed a bunch of random papers from the far corner of his desk and looked up at her as he started tapping them into a neat stack.

She arched her eyebrow at him.

'You really think I'm just having you on?'

There was something about her smile — the way it hitched slightly higher on the right, the way it perfectly matched the challenging arch in her eyebrow — and he knew that he shouldn't press someone who was looking at him like they were perfectly ready to take him up on whatever stupid thing he was offering, but this was —

She'd strutted into his office and started talking about magic. It wasn't real.

He'd have to figure out how they did that thing with the fire and the picture, but it wasn't real.

'Go stand over there.' She pointed to the far corner of his office and he frowned, crossed his arms over his chest.

'Don't start bossing me around my own office —'

She sighed. 'Just go stand in that corner.'

He had half a mind to snap at her again, but then she reached inside her jacket pocket and pulled out the stick again.

James immediately got to his feet and moved into the corner.

'You ready for my proof?' She rolled the stick around casually in her fingers and James swallowed nervously.

'What are you going to do?'

He thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her face as she rolled the stick once more before she grasped it firmly. 'Nothing that'll cause any lasting damage.'

James cringed internally. The number of times he'd heard that before —

She flicked the stick lightly, lazily, and James' entire desk burst into flames.

His —

'What the fuck —'

She moved the stick again and his desk went out.

It looked —

What the fuck?!

'How —' He walked over and touched the papers, the perfectly white, unburnt papers, on top of his desk, ran his fingers over the wood that was, somehow, cool to the touch. His eyes snapped to hers and he definitely — definitely — saw the smile on her face that time.

'How in the fuck did you do that?!'

She quirked an eyebrow at him. '"How"?' She considered him, the smile tugging higher on her lips. 'I have to say, I wasn't expecting "how". Last time it was "why in the world would you set my bloody desk on fire".'

His jaw dropped. 'You've set another desk on fire?'

'This same desk, actually.' She leaned forward and patted the wood like she was patting a dog. 'For your last Prime Minister.'

'You —' The significance of what she said clicked and he felt himself start to smile. 'You did this to May?'

She half shrugged, but there was something about her expression that told James she was pleased with herself. It was too even, too controlled — it reminded him of his own expression when he landed some jab in Parliament and he couldn't very well celebrate it on the floor.

'I'm only disappointed that I didn't get to do the bloke before her. Think of all the possibilities. I could've turned the desk into a talking pig or something.'

James barked a laugh. 'God, that would've been bloody perfect, wouldn't it?'

Lily nodded. 'I like to think so.'

'But —' James took a deep breath. 'Seriously. How did you do that?'

'I told you.' She opened her jacket and slipped the stick back into the interior pocket. 'Magic.'

'I — Alright.' He pulled his chair out and sat down. 'If this is all real, why didn't Theresa tell me about this? Or David? I know we're not exactly chummy, but —'

Lily raised an eyebrow at him again. 'Are you going to tell anyone about this?'

'I — I mean, I don't know. I'd have liked to know that a woman was going to step out of my fireplace and then set my desk on fire, yes.'

'So you're going to tell the next Prime Minister, whoever they are, that on your first night in Number 10, a woman came into your office and claimed to be the Minister for Magic and lit your desk on fire to prove it?'

'I —'

It sounded absolutely fucking mad when she said it like that, didn't it?

Lily's smile widened as she watched him mull it over, and when he finally shook his head and said, 'No, I guess not,' she finally smiled at him fully.

'Knew you'd get there in the end.'

'So you're — explain this to me. Who are you? What is this wizarding community? How many wizards are there in Britain?'

'I'm the Minister for Magic. Basically, I'm the Prime Minister of our government.'

'You have a government?'

Lily laughed. 'Of course we have a government. And be grateful we do. Things would be completely mad if we didn't.'

'There'd be people setting desks on fire left, right, and bloody centre,' James grumbled.

She laughed again and James, no matter how confused he was, decided that he really, really liked making her laugh.

'I'm the head of the government,' she said, and she sat up just a bit straighter in her chair. It was barely detectable, the movement, because her posture was already nearly perfect, but James recognised the movement well. It was the lift, the strength you get when you take on positions like theirs, the way that you carry yourself differently because you know just how much it matters.

She was proud, so proud.

And that — if the desk hadn't already proven it — would have convinced him.

'I was elected,' she said, 'so we differ there, but otherwise, our roles are effectively the same.'

'So you've got a legislature?'

Lily nodded. 'And courts and such. If you just take your government and fill it with wizards, you've basically got ours. We've got a few different departments, of course, and our structure is a bit different, but otherwise, as I've said, we're effectively the same.'

James nodded slowly. 'And how large is the wizarding community? Are we completely surrounded and I've just never known?'

Lily hummed noncommittally. 'There are a fair few wizards in your world,' she said, 'but for the most part, we tend to keep to our own.'

'Who's in our world?'

Lily smiled. 'Do you know Ted Tonks? BBC News?'

James' eyes widened. 'Is he a wizard?'

Lily nodded. 'We were in school together. He was in a different house, but we knew one another pretty well.'

That opened up a whole host of questions for him, but he needed to focus.

'So, there are a few thousand? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?' He could hear himself getting progressively more anxious, and he took a deep breath to try and recover himself.

'Oh, god, no,' Lily waved a hand. 'There are a few thousand wizards in Britain. The global population is larger, obviously, but we don't really need to worry you about that.'

Global….

Okay, no. They weren't worrying about that.

He wasn't responsible for all of those people and so he was not going to worry about that.

'So, alright.' He took a deep breath. 'You're the Minister for Magic. There's an entire magical government that none of us know anything about and there are thousands of magical people in Britain that somehow live here in secret?'

She nodded.

James exhaled hard as he leaned back in his chair and reached up underneath his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.

'I have to say, you're taking this much better than your predecessor.'

He looked up at her over top his fingers before he dropped his hand back into his lap. 'Am I now?'

She nodded. 'May had a very hard time believing that I was telling the truth. Almost called 999 on me, she did.'

'Even after the desk?'

'Ever after the desk.'

'Well, I don't see why you'd come in here and create this elaborate of a ruse just to fuck with me,' James said. 'Granted, I should expect that this is a joke because my brother has been known to pull some pretty elaborate things, but…. I don't know, I just believe you.'

'Well, thank you for making my life easier.'

He tipped his head towards her. 'I live to serve.'

She held his gaze for a moment, a smile almost on her lips, before her expression cleared and she cleared her throat. 'Well, let's get down to business, shall we?'

James raised an eyebrow at her. 'We have business?'

'Not strictly speaking,' Lily said. 'We're not going to have regular meetings or anything of that sort. I just need to give you a brief overview of what to expect from our relationship moving forward.'

James leaned back in his chair. 'And what relationship should I expect, Minister?'

'A non-existent one, I hope.'

James hoped that he didn't look as disappointed as he suddenly felt. 'Oh?' He smirked playfully at her in an effort to further conceal his disappointment. 'And why is that?'

'If you don't see any more of me, that means that everything is going well. So, trust me, you don't want to be seeing any more of me, either.'

'What sorts of things would you have to pop by for?' He wanted to know just how bad it needed to be before she thought it was worth a visit to Downing Street. Not because he wanted it to be bad, of course, but because he wanted to know what he could expect from her should he see her stepping out of his grate at some point in the future.

'I'd really only need to see you if we were in the middle of something that was likely to disrupt or otherwise impact the Muggle population. When we were having those issues with the dragons in the West Country a few years ago, for instance. We had to reach out to… I believe it was Gordon Brown, then?'

James must have blanched because she smiled reassuringly. 'Don't worry, we haven't had any dragon-related issues in over a decade. We've got some of the best dragonologists in the world. And anyway, there aren't so many out there now. We've had to install a number of protective measures in recent years to ensure the population is preserved. That's cut down on the Muggle exposure, too.'

'I —' James shook his head slowly. 'Dragons?'

She waved a hand. 'Seriously, don't worry about the dragons. If I come and see you again, it's more likely to be a wizard-related problem than a magical creature one.'

James nodded slowly. 'So, where would you say we're at in terms of potential future visits? Anything on the horizon that I need to worry about?'

He expected her to immediately say no, but she was quiet for a second before she finally replied.

'No,' she said. 'Nothing you need to worry about right now.'

James sat quietly for a moment and studied her. There was something about her hesitancy, something that made him think she wasn't being entirely truthful, but her expression was calm and even and, if she was lying or telling him a partial truth, she was remarkably good at it.

He was just about to open his mouth to say as much, maybe goad her into giving a little more away, when she cleared her throat.

'Well,' she stood and smoothed her hands down the front of her trousers and James tried not to follow the motion with his hands, 'it's been lovely chatting with you, Prime Minister, but I really must be getting back to the Ministry. And I hope you don't take it the wrong way when I say that I hope we don't have reason to meet again.'

James watched as she crossed the room and grabbed her long cloak from the hook beside his door, followed the fabric as it draped over her shoulders.

He shook his head mutely, cleared his throat. 'No. No, not offended at all.'

She smiled at him and reached into her pocket, pulled out a bit of something that looked like dust. He was just about to ask her what in the world she was doing with that in her pocket when she tossed it into the fire and the orange flames immediately turned green.

He expected her to stride right in, to leave his office the same way she'd arrived — calmly, swiftly, professionally. Like walking out of people's grates was something she did every day.

But she turned towards him again, and there was something in her expression that gave James pause, something that settled heavily in his chest. He couldn't describe it, couldn't say exactly what it was, but he could tell that it wasn't a feeling that would be easily shifted.

She smiled, then, a soft, gorgeous smile. It was short, barely a glimmer, but it had completely stopped his heart.

'Good night, Prime Minister.'

His throat was tight, inexplicably so, and he swallowed hard against it. 'Good night.'

He thought she might hesitate again, might stand there a bit longer, might say something else. He thought she might stay, but she turned on her heel the moment he bid her goodnight and stepped into the fire and, in one whirling moment, she was gone.

It was only a few months before he saw her again.

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