Written with the enormously talented and funny MollyRaesly who literally SaVed MY LiFE because I had two weeks of this story sitting stagnant because I had major writers block. As a result, she came in and made it 10,000 times better. Molly, as always, it's a pleasure writing with you.
"Did you happen to go onto twitter?"
Lily Evans looked up from her breakfast in surprise. Her best friend Marlene McKinnon dropped into the chair beside Lily at the table overlooking the balcony covered in ferns. Lily blinked owlishly at Marlene, who was still sporting her make up from the night before. Ten more years would be added under her eyes judging by the amount of caked mascara.
Marlene's curly hair matched Lily's own red hair and was pulled into a messy bun.
"I hardly ever go on Twitter." Lily reminded Marlene, "I only have it so I can retweet those cute animal photos. Aw, baby foxes. And they're cuddling...Look!" She held up her phone.
Marlene exasperatedly rolled her eyes, "Yes, they are adorable," she allowed, annoyed. "You really ought to use it more. You know most of your fan base wants to follow your life there."
Lily shrugged, her fingers slipping over the glass filled with orange juice in front of her, "my fans can follow my life on Instagram."
"Twitter is easier for them." Marlene waggled her eyebrows, "James has a Twitter."
Lily snorted, "James uses his Twitter to complain about America's President and to argue with internet trolls."
"He's one of the top followed people on Twitter." Marlene said, "and yesterday he posted a tweet about you."
Lily flushed but mumbled, "Is that so surprising? We are dating."
"The tweet has been retweeted over 1.2 Million Times." Marlene deadpanned, "and you're both trending on twitter and Facebook."
"Wait, What?" Lily wiggles her fingers at Marlene for the phone in her hand.
Marlene passed the phone over willingly and Lily looked at the screen. Marlene was on James' twitter page. There was one of her favorite pictures of her boyfriend, the one where he wore the red uniform of the English guard. Sometimes she had to have a reminder that she was dating the next in line to the throne. She was so used to thinking of him as nothing more than the soldier who swept her off her feet 15 months before when she'd been on a mission trip to Africa. They both had lost their shit over a mother elephant and her baby.
Lily looked below his profile description (Prince. Boyfriend. Cheese connoisseur.)
There was his tweet; the one Marlene has spoken about.
Included in the tweet was a picture of her. He maybe took it when she wasn't paying attention. Her red hair was curling around her face as she laughing at something away from the camera. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes were squinted shut. Her fingers were attached to the piano in front of her, methodically painting out the song she'd been singing at the grammy's. The song about her relationship with him. About the way he made every little piece of her life shine.
James_Potter I hate love songs, but I love you.
She couldn't resist the smile that fluttered across her face.
There were plenty of subtweets. Buzzfeed called their relationship 'goals' and Lily has to laugh. Her and James were far from perfect but it was the best relationship she'd ever been in. Lily looked away from Marlene's phone and got her own phone out to get on the seldom used twitter app.
She knelt over her keyboard with that smile and wrote on her Twitter for the first time since tour five months before.
lilyevansofficial i don't know about relationship goals, I woke up and james_potter was placing one of my face masks on siriusly while snuggling so I still question if he loves me more...
No sooner had she clicked send and walked over to the kitchen to grab an OJ, her home vibrated. It was her twitter account exploding by retweets in a minute. Marlene quirked an eyebrow from across the table.
"Holy shit!" Lily exclaimed as she checked the tweet. It already had 300 likes and 1.2k retweets.
Marlene laughed as she read aloud, "this bloke just said he'd sell his children to have a photo of that."
Lily snorted as she filtered through the subtweets, "that's fine, half of these are people saying they 'ship' us."
"Ship you?" Marlene laughed, "that's hilarious!"
"What does it mean?" Lily asked Marlene who was far more internet savvy.
"It means they have dorky joint names for you two like jily or lames."
"I personally like lames." Lily rolled her eyes as she scrolled.
Suddenly her twitter vibrated again, telling her a mutual had tweeted back. It was Sirius, who was always attached to his phone.
siriusly it's alright lilikins you know I love u more than him
Lily laughed out loud sarcastically before typing out a quick reply.
lilyevansofficial don't let James find out about our affair
siriusly too late, he had to inform and she wants us both thrown in the tower
lilyevansoffical think he'll love us enough still to bring us ice cream?
siriusly he fucking better
Her phone vibrated now, a call coming in from her publicist Minerva.
"Hello?" Lily answered the phone while Marlene sat in front of her reading all the tweets with a gleeful grin.
"I think you've tweeted more in the last five minutes than you ever did the first three years of your career."
"Hi Minerva," Lily hummed happily with a smile as she leaned into her kitchen counter, "what's up?"
"You and James were being requested for another interview."
"Again?" Lily huffed, sliding in her seat, "Why?"
"You've been dating a year now and you've only done two real interviews with each other." Minerva chastised, "half the papers believe you're both just using this relationship for publicity."
"You know I don't want my career to be based on who I'm shagging." Lily reminded Minerva gently, "James respects that and keeps the press at bay."
"Lily," Minerva sighed, "You're an Grammy winning singer and songwriter. No one is going to believe you're using James to further your career."
Lily groaned and placed her head in her hands, "Minnie please."
"Even James' publicist agrees you both need to do another interview." Minerva exclaimed, "and they try to keep James out of the papers as much as possible—but you're a positive thing in James' life since his father died."
Lily somberly sighed more as she thought of the James Potter she'd met a year and half ago at the Elephant Orphanage in Africa. He was silent and reserved back then, nothing like the cheery and bright man she'd come to love now. Sirius swore Lily saved James from a long bout of depression. Lily swore that James saved her from losing herself in the spotlight.
"I'll talk to James." Lily told Minerva, "he should be back from his cabinet meeting soon."
When Lily placed her phone down Marlene raised an eyebrow at Lily, "what's wrong?"
"Minerva thinks James and I should do another interview."
"And?"
Lily shrugged, "I don't want people to think we're anything else than what we are..."
"And what's that?" Marlene chewed on an orange piece.
"Lucky." Lily replied, "lucky and in love."
Those words sparked Lily's fingers, which were always itching to write a song. She grabbed a pen from nearby and a piece of paper so she could write the words she'd spoken in her curvy handwriting. No sooner had she finished writing, the front door opened and a man dressed in black wearing a hooked earring entered the apartment. Lily and Marlene didn't even flinch knowing that the people who entered the flat had to get past Lily's security guards first.
"Morning!" Sirius announced just as James entered behind dressed in a suit be fitting a prince.
Behind Lily's boyfriend came a bodyguard named Frank, a man of about their age who could break your bone with a paper clip and string if he needed. Lily slid off her chair and grinned widely at James as he walked over to her, arms open wide. Entrapped up in his embrace Lily felt warm, so at home. He kissed the top of her head before speaking.
"Who hacked your Twitter?"
Lily leaned back to look up at the tall boy and saw his hazel eyes were sparkling playfully.
"No one." She said, "why?"
"You've never been good at social media." James teased, "I thought Marley got ahold of your phone and was taking the mickey out of Sirius."
Marlene raised her cuppa at James, "cheers your majesty but Lily doesn't need my help to make fun of Sirius."
"Har har." Sirius rolled his eyes.
Lily touched James' chin with her fingertips and smiled brightly at him, "how was the meeting."
"Shite." James rolled his eyes, "the council is still trying to vote Tom Riddle up to parliament and I swear to god, if it happens I'm denouncing my throne and we can run away together."
"Let's buy a zoo," Lily suggested.
James winked, "You'd be a cute zookeeper."
"We could have baby elephants." Lily envisioned hugging elephants all day, "Do you think zoos are expensive?"
"What's stopping us?" James said as all those near the daydreaming couple rolled their eyes, "Those people did it in that one movie-"
Sirius shook his head quickly, "That movie was shite, and you are both too good-looking to fly under the radar."
James sighed. "Yes, that's it. Heavy is the head that wears this handsomeness."
"If beauty were a prerequisite for monarchy, you'd be all calling me your Majesty," Sirius insisted.
"Clearly," Lily agreed.
"Oi!"
Marlene looked up from Lily's phone, which she had filched while Lily was busy jotting down lyric ideas. "Lily, sweet cheeks, your Twitter exchange with Sirius has over 35,000 retweets. Here's a mention from some guy who calls himself PthePoltergeist. He wants to know if you would rather have ice cream every day or get a daily bite of the crowned prince."
"Are those two mutually exclusive?" James asked.
"How lacking this Poltergeist is in imagination," Lily said. "Sounds like he's been trolling a boys' school all his life. This is why Twitter bores me. Instagram is by far superior."
"You can always link your accounts so your twitter sends people to your Instagram. And I have the perfect photo idea." Sirius said, "We'll all wear face masks and eat ice cream on the couch."
"How does that solve the fact that Minerva wants James and I to do another interview together?" Lily asked.
"Lily's right." James said, "Another post going viral will only make our publicists get more calls for an interview."
Lily huffed, "And that's the last thing I want to do. I can hear that Skeeter woman already, 'So when do we hear wedding bells ringing for the happy couple' and I can't promise that I won't hit her with a vase this time."
James' bodyguard Frank snorted and when everyone turned to look at him he admitted, "I wanted to hit the woman with a vase myself."
"Come on," Sirius urged Lily, "Let's take the photo, for fun. We can deal with the inevitable proposal interview later."
Lily narrowed her eyes, "What do you mean, inevitable?"
"He doesn't mean anything." James said quickly, steering the conversation clear of proposals and rings, "We all know if I want to propose it has to be this big huge ordeal in front of half of parliament and my mum."
"Let's elope." Lily suggested.
"Your funeral when Mum Potter finds out." Sirius said as he dug through the freezer for Lily's ice cream tins.
Marlene noticed Sirius direction and stood up clapping her hands, "We're doing this photo? Wicked. I'll get the face masks."
Lily and James shared a look and James chuckled when he saw her lower lip pout out. James kissed her temple and rubbed her shoulders as their mates ran around Lily's flat to prepare for this photograph they wanted to post on the internet for the world to see.
"Humor them." james whispered to her, "They both don't get to take photos with us that often."
Lily nodded and leaned into his grasp, "I know, I know."
James led Lily over to the sofa in the sitting room while simultaneously throwing his phone at Frank, "Mind snapping the photo for us, Frank?"
"Not at all, Sir." Frank said, "Where do you want it?"
"On the sofa!" Sirius called from the kitchen, "Marley, where are those face masks?!"
From Lily and James' bedroom Marlene came out with a bowl filled with charcoal mask putty.
James shuddered. "This reminds me of all the hazing rituals I had to endure my first year at Hogwarts."
"Too right, mate," Sirius agreed with a wary look in his eye.
"What's Hogwarts?" Marlene asked.
"The super posh prep school James and Sirius both went to because they have such noble blood," Lily answered dryly before either of the two men could speak. "Can't imagine either of them should be scared of a little exfoliating after seven years of that school."
James nodded. "Gryffindors aren't afraid of anything. We're courageous to a fault."
"That fault being stupidity," Lily reminded him as she dabbed a bunch of charcoal mask gloop onto James's cheek.
He winced slightly but kept very still as she spread the mask around his face. She was very careful around his glasses, and he stared at her as she covered his nose. The look was not quite tender, for there was something charged in his eye when he looked at her.
"There," she said when she had finished. "All done."
He leaned over to kiss her, and when he emerged, Lily had mask all over her face, as well, in chunks and spots.
Marlene snapped a photo.
"Oi!" Lily screeched.
"Possible next cover art for your new EP, Lils."
"Oh, yeah," said James. "And what's this new chart topper going to be called?"
Lily blushed slightly underneath her charcoal mask—a redhead to the end. "Lucky," she told him as she slipped her mask muddy fingers in his. "And in love."
They didn't get around to taking the photo Marlene intended until over an hour later, but Lily and James were still smiling and holding hands. And covered in bits of charcoal mask in the oddest places.
Thanks for reading, if you liked it don't forget to drop by MollyRaesly's page too and let her know!
xxx
Petals