you can all thank ohk4te on tumblr for this chapter. She is literal sunshine

(and thanks, as always, to scaredofrobots who fedora'ed this again this week and left me keyboard smashes for days. I love you infinitely)

Lily didn't tell Marlene that she knew for a fact that James returned her feelings. She didn't say anything at all as they wiped down their mats and handed them back to Dorcas, didn't say anything on their walk back to the hotel.

She knew that Marlene was waiting for her to say something, but Lily wasn't sure what to say.

And anyway, it didn't matter, because she'd already told James that nothing was going to happen between them. And now he wasn't talking to her, so what was even the point in continuing to obsess about this?

Lily took a quick shower and grabbed breakfast from the hotel restaurant, but she still had a fair bit of time to kill before she had to be over at the Potters' place for the family interviews that afternoon. Normally (last series normally, anyway), she would have gone up to Marlene's room and sat and chatted for a few hours, but today, she really just wanted to be alone.

She walked out of the hotel and crossed the street towards the gardens opposite. She ran her hand along the surrounding brick wall as she walked, looked out over the expanse of bright green grass. She could just make out the river beyond the willows lining the path that ran the bank, and she decided that, as soon as she reached the gate, she was going to turn in and walk there for a while.

Then she spotted the Majestic Wine Warehouse across the street and thought that maybe that would be a better place to spend her time that morning.

She walked through the iron gate when she reached the garden entrance and started down the path, past the blooming patch of wildflowers, towards the trail that ran along the river. There were a few kids and their parents in the play area a few metres away, a few people were walking dogs throughout the park, but the morning was mostly quiet and Lily was mostly alone.

She turned onto the path by the river and she could just hear the movement of the water over the traffic on the road behind her.

Part of her wanted to tell Marlene about what was going on with James — she wanted to talk about it, really talk about it, and she wanted to talk about it with her best friend. She knew that Marlene, if Lily confided in her, would try to help her find a way out of this whole damn situation, would probably try to get James off the show, but Marlene wouldn't be able to prevent the lawsuit or Lily's firing or any of the other terrible things that Lily let herself imagine when she started thinking about her and James seriously giving this thing between them a go.

Keeping it to herself meant that she didn't have any options moving forward, but it also meant that she didn't get her hopes up.

And anyway, she'd already told James that nothing was going to happen between them. She couldn't go back on that now, not after she'd been so damn insistent about the whole thing.

And maybe she shouldn't have been so firm in her refusal to consider this... this relationship, but really, how could it end well? The stress and the pressure of the lawsuits and everything else they would have to go through just to get together would put so much strain on the relationship that Lily knew it would fall apart before it really even got going. And how was she supposed to enter into relationship like that, one that she knew was destined to fail before it even got off the ground?

It was better this way. It had to be better this way.

Lily walked up and down the path beside the Thames for the better part of an hour before she finally sighed and started to make her way home. Thinking it over and over and over wasn't going to make any difference and she really should head over to the Potters' anyway.

When Lily arrived outside the Potters' half an hour later, the house was a veritable flurry of activity, especially after her quiet morning by the river. There were a number of cars parked along the street that Lily knew belonged to production and several people walking in and out of the house as Lily started up the drive.

The door was open when she climbed the stairs, but she still knocked firmly on the wood and announced herself as she walked in.

'Euphemia? I'm here.'

'We're in the kitchen, Lily, darling!'

Lily slid through the hallway, now two feet narrower because of the lights they'd set up, and into the kitchen. James, because of course her eyes found him first, was pouring water into a large teapot on the far side of the kitchen, and Euphemia, Fleamont, Sirius, and Remus were all set at the table.

James looked up when she walked in and his eyes met hers. And she knew she shouldn't be looking at him, not like she was, not when she'd told him two days ago that there was no point to this thing brewing between them, not when he'd spent the last few days ignoring her, not when his entire family was sitting at the kitchen table and could very easily see the fact that she was looking at him like he was water and she'd just crawled out of the fucking desert.

She shouldn't be looking at him like she was, but that seemed to be a theme of this thing of theirs.

And anyway, how could she care about what she was supposed to be doing when he was looking at her like that, like her walking into the room had shifted his world on its axis?

He looked away and resumed making the tea.

Lily smiled at everyone at the table.

'How's everyone today?' She sounded more cheerful than usual, and she hoped that no one knew she was compensating.

'Just lovely,' Euphemia smiled at her. 'How're you, Lily?'

Remus pulled out a chair next to him and Lily muttered her thanks as she sat down.

'I'm alright. Marlene dragged me out of bed at half six to go to yoga this morning, so I'm a bit more exhausted than I'd like.'

'Marlene McKinnon?!'

Sirius was gaping at her and Lily laughed. 'Yeah. Why? You a fan?'

Remus rolled his eyes and jumped in before Sirius could reply. 'He's only worshipped her her entire career.'

Sirius smacked Remus' bicep. 'Stop, you're embarrassing me.'

Remus shot him a look. 'This embarrasses you? Nothing embarrasses you.'

Sirius crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. 'I don't like what you're insinuating.'

'Oh?' Lily could just catch the arch of Remus' eyebrow as he turned to face Sirius. 'And what am I insinuating?'

'That I'm somehow less than the warm, sensitive soul that we both know me to be.'

Everyone around the table burst out laughing, and Sirius started pouting. 'I hate the lot of you.'

James brought the tea tray over and set it in the centre of the table before he took his seat beside his father at the opposite end of the table. He was directly in Lily's line of sight, but she was determined to keep her eyes off of him again, at least as much as she could manage.

She looked up when he handed her her mug.

That was about it.

Once everyone's tea had been passed around, Lily cleared her throat. 'Alright, so I just wanted to go over a few things before we get started this afternoon.' Everyone nodded and Lily continued. 'We'll set you up in the lounge as soon as they're finished lighting it, and we just want you to have a nice, easy conversation with James about the journey so far — what it's been like, what he's thinking, where his heart's at, that sort of thing.'

James tapped his spoon against the side of his mug and Lily's eyes flickered to his for a moment before she scanned the rest of the table.

'Any questions?'

'Do we get information about any of these women?' Fleamont asked. 'Our son has been rather tight lipped about the whole thing, so I'm not sure we'll have much to go on.'

'I have files on everyone in my mobile if you need information on someone and James can't remember. We can also give you some background about what's been happening since they got on the show, give the illusion that you and James have talked about these women at length.'

'That's what ninety-nine per cent of this show is, Dad.' James' tone was incredibly bitter and Lily looked down at the mug in her hands to avoid seeing any part of his expression. 'This whole damn thing is an illusion.'

Everyone went quiet. There was just the sound of the crew setting up in the house around them and the uncomfortable shifting of mugs against the table to break the silence.

Finally, Sirius leaned across the table to look at Lily.

'So, I've got a question.'

Lily cleared her throat. 'Shoot.'

'How many of the women at the group date thought I was fit as fuck?'

Thank god for Sirius Black.

They chatted for a while longer before Lily gathered everyone from the table and herded them into the lounge. It took them a few minutes until they were seated just so, Remus in the armchair, Sirius balancing on the arm, James, Euphemia, and Fleamont on the sofa. It took them awhile to relax under the cameras, for them to start speaking to one another in a way that sounded even remotely natural, but Lily just sat in a chair off screen and lobbed questions at them, occasionally throwing in something cheeky whenever they started going stiff again.

It hadn't been easy, though, sitting there and listening to James talk about these women. He knew that he and Liza got along, but hearing him talk about her… hearing him say how kind she was, how funny, how beautiful, how he wondered what her parents were like to have raised someone as wonderful as she was… hearing him think about her outside of the context of the show, to start wondering at the other pieces that made her up… it nearly made Lily's heart give out.

But she was determined to put on a brave face, was determined to sit there and continue to do her job, because this was what she wanted, wasn't it? She'd told James that she wanted him to start being more serious about the women on the show, she told him that she wanted him to pursue them, to get over her and let his relationships with the contestants develop.

That wasn't going to happen if she kept freaking out about it whenever he made any kind of progress with them. She was going to need to be happy and supportive and encourage him to continue working on it.

It didn't matter if it was quietly killing her, it was what she was going to have to do.

It took them a few hours to get all the footage Lily thought they might need — she had a lot of really, really great clips, things that they could definitely use in promo material, and she was congratulating herself on an incredibly professional job well done when Euphemia crossed the lounge towards her.

'Lily,' she dropped her voice and leaned in a bit, 'I was wondering if I might be able to have a word.'

She hoped to god that the panic that had started twisting in her stomach didn't show on her face. 'Yeah, sure. Of course.'

Euphemia took her elbow and led her out behind the cameras, into the kitchen, and through the back door into the garden. Lily shut the door behind them while Euphemia reached back and started tugging at her microphone wire.

So that was how it was going to be.

There was a pair of chairs at the end of the patio, and Euphemia sat in one and gestured towards the other. 'Please, have a seat.'

Lily sat.

Euphemia reached up and smoothed the fabric of her hijab, then folded her hands in her lap before unfolding them again and twisting her wedding band around her finger.

If Lily had had any question about which of his parents James more closely resembled, this moment would have told her everything she needed to know.

She wasn't sure why Euphemia had asked to speak with her — she'd thought, at first, that she knew something about how Lily felt though how she would've had any idea, she wasn't sure. Unless, of course James had said something...

But James wouldn't have said anything. He wasn't stupid enough to start talking about them — they weren't even a them — and with the way he'd been looking at her the past few days? There was no way that he was going around and talking about her to his mother.

She had no idea what Euphemia was planning or what she was obviously so nervous about, and though Lily wanted to jump in and say something, anything to break the silence, she wasn't sure where to begin or what to say and so she just sat there, the nerves winding tighter and tighter in her gut as Euphemia sat silently next to her, twisting her wedding band around and around and gathering her thoughts.

'My son wears his heart on his sleeve,' Euphemia said at last, and Lily's heart climbed into her throat. 'I worried about him coming on this kind of show because I knew it would be painfully obvious to everyone the moment he started falling for someone.'

Oh god.

'That isn't to say that I thought he'd be cruel or even unkind to the other women on the show. It's just that he's never been able to hide the way he feels, and I worried that the other women would be upset once they realised where his affections lie.'

She paused for a long moment like she was waiting for Lily to say something, but Lily didn't say anything. She couldn't even if she'd wanted to — her mouth was too dry and she couldn't quite breathe.

Euphemia folded her hands again and leaned forward in her seat.

'Lily, I knew from the moment James introduced you. The way he looks at you —' Euphemia shook her head, a small smile tugging at her lips. 'I've never seen him look at anyone like that before. And I wouldn't have bothered telling you about this, but I don't think James is alone in feeling this way.'

Lily pulled in a sharp breath and wiped hurriedly at her eyes.

She hadn't — why in the fuck was she crying?

'Shit, sorry.' She brushed away another tear and swallowed hard. Euphemia reached over and took Lily's hands in her own and squeezed, and Lily looked up at the sky, blinked back more tears, and started shouting at herself in her head to get it together.

This was absurd. This was fucking absurd. She had nothing to be crying about. She had nothing to be crying about and she was not about to start sobbing her bloody eyes out in front of this woman she didn't even know.

'I know this is hard,' Euphemia said, and her tone, soft and loving and kind, wasn't doing anything to stop the tears still leaking from the corners of Lily's eyes. 'I know this is hard, and I'm sorry if I'm over-stepping, but Lily — if you both feel the way that you seem to feel about one another… I don't understand what you're doing, continuing on with this.'

Lily pulled in a slow, shaky breath and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them and saw the look on Euphemia's face — god. She desperately wanted to give her a different answer.

But she had to be consistent. She couldn't give Euphemia hope when she hadn't even given it to James.

'I — we talked about it. In Scotland. And then again when we got here. Out on the porch that first night. I — we can't. We just can't.'

Lily expected Euphemia to let go of her hands, to scoff or say something annoyed or to do something, anything that showed how ridiculous she thought Lily's decision was. So when Euphemia squeezed Lily's hands again and she nodded slowly and said, 'That's up to you. To both of you,' Lily started crying again.

'I'm sorry,' Lily said. Euphemia let go of her hands so she could wipe her eyes. 'I'm sorry, I — I don't know why I'm crying.'

'You don't need to apologise for crying, Lily.' Euphemia put a hand on Lily's knee. 'It's a lot. And I'm sure you haven't been talking about this with anyone, so you're just overwhelmed.'

'And I just —' Lily sucked in a sharp breath. 'I want to be able to give him a different answer. But — the situation, it's — there's nothing we can do.'

'Are you sure there's nothing? Nothing at all?'

Lily breathed a laugh. 'He'll get sued for everything he's worth and I'll lose my job and we'll both get dragged through the PR mud until there's no way we resurface. I — I don't want him to have to go through that.'

'Does James know that?'

'I tell him he'll get sued, like, every other day.'

'What does he say about that?'

'He says he doesn't care.'

Euphemia chuckled, shook her head. 'Of course he doesn't.'

She was quiet for a minute before she took a deep breath. 'Lily, I'm not going to tell you what to do. But if James is ready to deal with whatever fallout the two of you going public might cause… you don't have to protect him from that. If he says he's ready and he wants to go into it anyway, then he means it. It's just a matter of what you want to do. And that doesn't mean you have to follow James into the fire and it doesn't mean that you are any less for wanting to stay out of it. Truth be told, James needs a steadying influence like that sometimes. He has a tendency to jump into things head first and ask questions later, especially when his heart's involved.

'But if you're only avoiding it because you're scared or you're afraid of what other people will say… if all your reservations have to do with other people, maybe just… rethink a few things. See if might not be worth it to take a bit of a risk.'

Lily swallowed hard. 'You have no idea how much I want to.'

'I think I have an idea.'

They were quiet for a moment before Euphemia sighed, patted Lily's knee, and stood.

'Whatever you decide to do, I'm sure it's the right thing. Just — if you do decide not to pursue this thing with James… stick to it. I know it'll be hard, watching him go through this, especially while you still have feelings for him, but if you're going to let him go, you've got to really let go.'

She'd been telling herself this exact thing every day since their conversation on Wednesday night, had thought about it again and again on her walk this morning, but there was something different about hearing it come from James' mum, about hearing her articulate something that Lily had been turning over in her own head. Euphemia seemed to understand that the things Lily was considering were putting far too much pressure on her for her to ever have the kind of relationship that she and James would have wanted.

She understood that this wasn't the right time. These weren't the right circumstances.

And so while it was going to hurt watching him with everyone else and she was going to want to backtrack on her decision, she had to stick by it. She had to plant her feet firmly behind the line and refuse to cross it because the only thing that would come from their relationship —

It wasn't going to be anything good. It couldn't be anything good when every single time she thought about it — when she stopped thinking about the way that James' glasses suited him and the way his shoulders filled out a suit and the way she imagined his fingers would feel against her bare skin and the way he made her laugh and the way he cared about and for her — whenever she stopped thinking about those things, she immediately started thinking about everything that would break if they got together.

And maybe James didn't care about getting sued, but she couldn't lose this job. She couldn't. She'd spent too much of her life without a stable source of income and she knew what that meant, living like that, and she couldn't put herself back into a situation like that, not on purpose.

Lily took a slow, deep breath, looked up at Euphemia, and nodded.

Euphemia left Lily in the garden so she could have a moment to herself.

Lily watched Euphemia gather herself — she straightened her shoulders, smoothed out non-existent lines in her trousers — before she opened the back door and walked back into the house. Everyone must have wandered back into the kitchen, because Lily heard their voices through the door once Euphemia walked back inside.

She couldn't quite tell what they were talking about, but as long as they weren't talking about her, Lily didn't really care.

Their house really was beautiful, the Potters'. She hadn't really appreciated it when she'd first come out here because she was too busy freaking out about what Euphemia was going to talk to her about, but they really did have a lovely garden. The patio was slate, like the drive, there was a small flower bed around the perimeter, and the whole yard smelled like the lilac and whatever else they had growing there.

It would be lovely to sit out here at night. To watch the sun go down over the houses behind theirs.

Lily closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to try and clear her head.

She went back into the house a few minutes later, after checking her face in her phone camera to make sure that her eyes weren't recognisably red or puffy. If anyone looked closely they might notice, but Lily assumed that, busy and packed as it was, no one inside was going to take time to really look at her face.

She opened the kitchen door quietly, hoping to slip in without being noticed, but James was sitting at the table as she walked in.

She cleared her throat and attempted a smile. 'Hey.'

'Hey. Here.' He grabbed a mug off the table and handed it to her.

Tea.

She was not going to get emotional about a goddamn cup of tea.

'Thanks.' She took a long, slow sip, and focused on the the heat flooding through her, on the way it steadied her nerves.

James nodded before he looked back down at the mug in his own hands. 'No problem.'

They fell silent.

This was awful. This was fucking awful. They weren't — it had never been difficult for them to sustain a conversation, and now here they were, the mugs of tea in their hands the only things keeping them (keeping Lily at least) from going totally and completely mad.

How were they supposed to get through the next six weeks if they couldn't even have a civil conversation?

'We got some great footage today,' Lily said.

James was halfway through another long sip of tea and he hummed. 'Yeah.'

'Your Dad and Remus seemed pretty nervous about being on camera.'

James nodded. 'That's not really their kind of thing. Mum and Sirius are more into the spotlight.'

Lily laughed. 'You know, somehow I guessed that.'

She'd hoped that he might finally crack a smile at that, but he looked down the moment she'd started laughing and so whatever smile might have been there would have been completely invisible to her.

They both drank some more tea.

Lily finished her cup and started turning it nervously around in her hands. 'We should head over to the ceremony space soon.'

James nodded and he tipped his head back without catching her eye, finished off the rest of his tea. 'Alright. Just let me go say goodbye to my parents.'

'You'll be back tonight.'

'No, I know, but it'll be really late and — I'll meet you out front, yeah?'

Lily nodded. 'Yeah, alright.'

James got up from the table, walked over and reached his hand out towards her. It took Lily a moment to realise what he wanted.

'Oh. Mug.' She handed it to him and James almost, almost smiled.

He nodded. 'Mug.'

He washed their mugs quickly in the sink and set them on the draining board — when he turned back around, Lily quickly averted her eyes and pretended that she hadn't been watching his arms move as he was washing up.

He looked at her for a second, longer than he had since they'd argued, and the expression on his face — it was like he was trying to decide something and he wasn't quite sure which way he wanted to go.

He finally sighed, said, 'I'll meet you out front,' and then walked out of the kitchen.

When Lily reached back to pull her mobile out of her pocket, her hands were shaking a little bit.

She texted Mary to have her send a car and, after taking one more deep breath, walked through the house and out the front door. She felt a bit bad not saying goodbye to any of James' family, especially Euphemia since she'd been so wonderful to her, but Lily had to remind herself that, really, she wasn't going to be seeing these people ever again and so, ultimately, it didn't really matter that she wasn't saying goodbye.

She walked down the drive and sat on the garden wall.

She heard the front door open a few minutes later, and she resisted the urge to turn around and look. Whoever had opened the door must have hesitated on the step, but it wasn't long before she heard them start walking towards her. She only looked up when she noticed someone moving in her periphery.

'Car should be here in a second.'

James nodded and slid onto the wall next to her.

Again, neither of them seemed to have anything to say.

The next few weeks really were going to be fucking —

'I'm sorry if Mum made you uncomfortable. Out in the garden earlier.'

Lily's head snapped up and she turned to look at him.

'I — I really didn't know she was going to do that,' he continued. 'I didn't ask her to or anything, I —'

'It's okay,' Lily smiled, genuinely smiled. 'It didn't make me uncomfortable. I mean, more than I already sort of am about this whole mess.'

James breathed a laugh and Lily's smile widened at the sound. 'This is a mess isn't it?'

Lily nodded. 'It really is. Anyway, it was nice talking to her. She helped me clear my head a bit.'

James raised an eyebrow at her. 'Oh?'

She thought she saw the faintest trace of hope on his face, just the lightest hint of it across his features.

Lily nodded. 'Every other time I've talked about it, it's turned into some kind of fight. It was nice that she just listened.'

James nodded slowly and looked down at his knees.

'She said I really had to let go. If that's what I wanted.'

James looked back up at her then, and he studied her for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough. 'Is that what you want?'

'It's what I'm doing.'

'That doesn't answer my question.'

Lily took a breath. 'I know.'

The car pulled up then, and they both slid off the wall.