AN: This weekend hasn't been super fun for me, guys. But Today I'm going to see Little Women, and I'm going to a bookstore that I haven't been to before, so hopefully it'll turn around.

As for ya'll, I decided to give you two chapters again. Enjoy the first:

Emma briefed both of them during breakfast the next morning.

They had interviews scheduled for both Monday and Tuesday this week. Lily wasn't sure how Parliament was going to feel about that, or how she would feel come the end of the week when she had to stay up late every night to make up all the work she was going to miss, but she would get through it.

"Don't forget that we have a parade on Thursday." Anita was looking at Emma while she said this, but it did not fool Lily. Lily was the one who forgot things. Emma didn't forget anything. She was one of those people would could walk into a room, look around, close her eyes and then tell you how many people were wearing uni jumpers or red hats.

"Yes, and the festival is after the parade. I think it'll be a nice opportunity for a photo, but we'll talk about that later on in the week. Today, you two are going to go and sit down with Emmeline Vance over at the Morning Show." She pulled out her phone and typed something out. "And then you'll sit down with a reporter for the Daily Prophet. Everyone wants details about the engagement and your wedding plans. Last night couldn't have gone better if I'd staged it all myself," She'd said this at least half a dozen time already.

And showed them the pictures. Lily had pointed out to James that it looked exactly like a scene from the movie they'd watched last night. He'd made a joke about how great he was at this whole romance thing. She'd rolled her eyes. Mary had watched the entire exchange with knowing eyes. Lily had glared at her.

"Two interviews today?" Lily asked, "You realize that I still have to work, yes?"

Emma nodded. "Yes, of course. Though I think everyone will be understanding if you're a little preoccupied for the next couple of weeks."

"I don't think they will be. Especially not certain people."

"Okay, but you'll have people to help you field them," Emma shrugged. Lily wished she knew how to care so little about what Rosier and Malfoy thought about her. "We're also going to do engagement photos here at the castle sometime soon. Though well probably go on location as well…" She trailed off, eyes still on her phone.

"Oh, that's a lovely idea," Anita grinned. "Though I still think we should have them sit for a formal portrait."

"Like a painting?" Lily asked. "That would take forever, wouldn't it?" She didn't have that kind of time, didn't they realize that?

"We can do it after the wedding, of course," Anita seemed to realize that Lily's brain was getting overwhelmed. "But I'd like you to have one to match mine and Roberts."

"My parents never sat for a portrait." Lily countered.

"No, you father married your mother without my knowledge. There was nothing official about it." She cleared her throat and looked down at her paper. Luckily the giant picture of Lily and James was face down on the table at the moment.

"Lucky he did," Mary said, tipping her head back and forth. "Or you'd be down two, terrific granddaughters."

"Two?" Anita raised a brow.

"Yes, two." Mary shot back. Anita smiled at her and patted her hand.

"Yes, I would. Though I'd rather he hadn't lied to me about the whole thing."

"He was in love," Mary shrugged as though that explained it all. "What was the boy supposed to do?"

"His duty." Anita replied. "Same as I did, same as Lily is doing."

"He came back," Lily said softly. Anita respected her son for the reasons that Lily resented him. He'd left her mother and her to come back to this country, to rule and she never saw him.

"He did." Anita smiled, reaching for her tea. "And he did a wonderful job taking care of Gryffindor."

"King David was easier to manage as well," Emma gave her a look and Lily narrowed her brows. She didn't know much about her dad, but he had run off and married a woman in secret. He didn't sound like he'd be easier to manage than Lily was. She was about to voice this when James cleared his throat.

"I have a question," James spoke up, setting down his tea. "What will be my job once Lily and I are married?"

"You will be the king consort." Anita answered promptly.

"Yes," James nodded, "But what does that entail exactly? How will I occupy my time? There aren't going to be interviews and photo shoots quite so frequently after things calm down."

The room was quiet for a moment, Lily unsure of what the answer was and Emma and Anita thinking it over most likely.

"Well, James," Anita spoke after a moment. "I believe that you'll have a fair bit of freedom when it comes to what you'll do here after the wedding. It will have to be appropriate for your title and position, but there are many options."

James nodded. "Well then I suppose I'll have to think it over and then talk with you about it later."

"Yes, of course," Anita nodded.

"I can put a list together," Emma suggested, looking up from her phone and tilting her head to the side. "I mean, you'll take meetings with parliament, like Lily does. There will be ceremonial jobs, so you'll attend formal parliament meetings… but I know what you mean. I'll put together a list," She repeated, and James nodded.

"If I were you," Mary grinned, taking a sip of her tea before continuing. "I think I would be content to just be a trophy husband slash king."

Lily huffed and rolled her eyes, but James laughed. "A trophy king? Sirius would die of envy."

Once they were in the studio of the Morning Show, Lily's heart was beating a bit faster than she would have liked.

James was holding her hand, which normally helped, but it was doing little for her nerves at the moment. It might have been making her more nervous. Because if she was by herself for this interview, then she would feel more in control. She would know that people weren't making assumptions about her and the man attached to her.

"I suppose I could be a man of leisure," James said, looking over the dessert table that someone had set up for them.

"What?" Lily asked, tapping her fingers against her thigh and looking around the room at all the moving people.

"You know how the wives of rich men are called 'ladies of leisure?'" He shrugged. "I suppose I get to be a man of leisure. I'm not sure how I feel about it, though trophy king is a good term too. I'd have to host brunches and start a charity. I don't know how to do either of those things. Though I suppose all I'd have to do is just tell Emma and then she'd do most of it for me."

Lily looked over at him and frowned. "You're really unsure of this, aren't you? What is it that you did before you came here?"

He nodded his head from side to side. "You're from Cokesworth, yeah? I don't want you to think that I'm being posh or arrogant."

Lily narrowed her brow. "What did you do?"

He let out a breath, "I traveled with my mum to collect artwork for her collection. And I worked with my dad at his company."

Lily snorted, "Of course."

"Of course." James nodded. "But if you had to guess, what would you have said that I did?"

"I think I would have gotten there after a guess or two." She shrugged, "Any interest in politics? Perhaps we could work on something together."

"I mean, of course I have interest in it, but I don't want to add to your plate. I know that you're busy."

Lily smiled at him. He'd been acting a bit strange all day, and she was pretty sure it was because she hadn't let them have the conversation that he'd wanted to have last night. At least that was why she thought he was acting a bit off. "Well, I wasn't offering to do something right now, but in a couple months I won't be nearly so frazzled or busy."

"Oh? You think all this hype will die down in just a couple of months?"

Lily bit the tip of her tongue and shrugged again. "Oh yes, after I'm queen things will be much less busy."

James chuckled. "I appreciate the offer, and I might take you up on it eventually, but I think I have to figure out where I fit in here on my own as well."

Lily nodded, "That makes sense."

And then Emmeline was waving them over and Lily's stomach turned to lead again. Damn her nerves.

"Good morning, you two!" Emmeline smiled at them, her teeth a little too white. "I'm so very honored that you chose to be on my show this morning! You're all that anyone is talking about!"

That was a lot for Lily this early in the morning, but she smiled back and nodded. "Yes, well, thank you for having us. We're very excited to share the news." James' hand slipped into hers and she squeezed it tightly. She'd had to put on a show for the people before where James was involved, but this would require a lot more speaking on her part, and she wasn't completely comfortable lying about what was going on. But she knew that they wouldn't like to hear that she was only marrying James because of a law that parliament had found and decided to enforce either.

"This is just going to be a short little fluff piece," Emmeline assured them, "Nothing to be nervous about. I'll ask you about the engagement- Emma gave me a list of questions to steer clear of before hand, so don't worry about any curve balls." Lily nodded, she'd helped Emma come up with that list. Questions like, 'how did you two meet,' weren't on the table, since they met when she picked him out of a stack of eligible bachelors.

"Alright, we're live in two minutes," She held up two fingers as though they were small children, or perhaps Lily just found her bubbly personality infantilizing because she was nervous. She shook her head. "Why don't you two take a seat here, I want Lily closest to me." She pointed at the small white couch that was beside the chair she normally sat in. They sat down, and Emmeline smiled at them. "Perfect."

"One minute!" Someone from behind the camera called out.

"You alright?" James asked, and his voice was a lot closer to her ear than she'd expected.

She turned to look at him, "Yeah. You?"

"Little nervous. I've never done this before." Lily smiled at him.

"It's alright, I'm actually pretty good at this."

"I know you are," James smiled back at her. "I've seen you on television before."

Lily tilted her head and had to lock that way so she would remember to ask him about it later. Of course he'd seen her on tv before, but it was still a weird thing to think about, that he'd seen her long before she'd met him. What had he thought? Had he been following along like the rest of the country?

She couldn't ask him now though, because Emmeline had reached over to touch her arm, letting her know that they had less than ten seconds before they were live.

Lily smiled and squeezed James' hand before he let go and put his arm around the back of the couch.

"Good morning, Gryffindor!" Emmeline greeted her audience with much enthusiasm and Lily tried to brighten her smile a bit. "We have quite an exciting show for you this morning, later we'll talk to Bathilda Bagshot about her upcoming book, chronicling our country's proud history, but first, and this is quite a treat for all of you, we have Princess Lily and Lord James Potter on the show to share with us the details of their engagement."

Lily could tell that this was where the camera panned out to include the two of them in the shot. "Thank you both so much for agreeing to sit with me for a bit this morning!"

"Oh, thank you so much for having us!" Lily smiled. "It's been a while since you and I have had a chat."

"It's been much too long!" Emmeline agreed. "Especially considering just how much has happened between now and the last time the two of us have talked. Of course, all the real excitement is still yet to come I suppose!" She looked at James. "And Lord James, this is your first time on the show, yes?"

"Yes, I believe it is." He nodded. "I was just letting Lily know before the cameras turned on, that I don't think I've ever done anything like this."

"This is your first tv interview!" Emmeline seemed to love that. "Wonderful! But let's go ahead and dive into what I know everyone at home is just dying to hear about. The engagement." The word came off her lips sounding more like a spell. The screens behind her shifted and suddenly, there were the pictures that Lily had avoided looking at too closely this morning at breakfast.

James was down on one knee, she had her hands clasped together over her chest and they were both smiling at one another like they were the only people in the world. Whoever took this picture was good too, because you could see the snow falling and the lights looked like they were twinkling, and the sky was a gorgeous shade of pink.

"James," Emmeline turned her head away from the picture and back to James. "How did you pick such a perfect moment? I mean this looks like a still from a movie!"

James laughed and his hand jumped up to his hair. "That might have been what I was going for." He looked at Lily, like he was asking permission for something and smiled and looked back at Emmeline.

"We had dinner before this, and I had been going on about Christmas movies and how perfectly cheesy they were, and how that day just kind of seemed like it should be part of a Christmas movie."

"And so you just happened to have the ring on you?" Emmeline's eyes were wide.

"No! It wasn't an accident. Originally, I was going to ask her to marry me in the restaurant, but after hearing her go on about the movies and the snow, I thought that she'd like this more," He nodded back at the picture.

"And did you know?" She asked Lily.

Lily chuckled and looked down at her hands. "He surprised me." She looked over at him for a moment and then back at Emmeline. "I mean, I thought he was going to propose after dessert, but when he didn't, I thought it was just in my head-"

"Wishful thinking?" Emmeline supplied.

Lily nodded along. "Something like that."

"Does it count as wishful thinking if she was right all along?" James cut in, and Emmeline laughed.

"He may have a point there," She glanced back at the picture. "So, I know that this all happened yesterday, but do the two of you have any idea of when the big event will take place?"

Lily took a deep breath and James' hand slid onto her shoulder. "Yes we do. January twenty-fifth."

Emmeline raised her brows, and Lily could see her refraining from looking down at Lily's stomach. This did seem like that kind of wedding announcement. "So soon!"

"Yes," James nodded. "We don't want to make a big fuss. Lily is taking over the crown in February and she didn't want to spend her first few months as queen, also planning a wedding."

"Yes, I want to devote all of my attention to the people of Gryffindor. James was very understanding of that." She smiled at him, but she wanted to tell Emmeline the truth.

"Yes, and it's so close to your birthday, so that makes things rather easy for me." James chuckled and Emmeline laughed as well.

"Yes, your birthday and the coronation! It's going to be such a busy time!"

"Yes," Lily agreed, "But then the rest of the year should be fairly smooth sailing."

"Alright, well it seems you two have thought this out. And if you're in love, then why not get married in two weeks!" She laughed again and then turned to the camera. "Well isn't that exciting! After the break we'll be talking to people who witnessed the engagement firsthand!"

And then someone from behind the camera yelled something and Emmeline stood up.

"Thank you both for being here this morning," She looked giddy. "And for letting me break that news. Two weeks? You're not-" She glanced down at her stomach now, and Lily had to find a way to be grateful that she'd refrained while on air.

"No," Lily shook her head. "I'm not pregnant. Parliament just wants to see me married before I'm crowned."

Emmeline raised her brows and then opened her mouth as though she just made the connection, "Oh, because they don't want you distracted."

"Sure." Lily nodded. "It was great to see you again, Emmeline." She reached out and shook her head. "We have to be going though,"

"Yes, of course! Come back anytime!"

James spent the walk back to the car looking around and over his shoulder. Lily almost snapped at him, but she refrained. "What's got you so antsy?"

"They are interviewing people who were on the street?" He'd been waiting for her to bring it up, she could tell. He pushed his glasses up his nose and opened the car door for Lily before Moody could. "But we were there, she could have just asked us!"

Lily had expected there to be 'witnesses' there for the show, but it was still strange. "They want to talk about it, and we're leaving."

"And she thought that you were pregnant!" His hand was in his hair now, and he leaned up against the side of the car.

"Of course she did, we've just announced that we're getting married in two weeks."

"Two weeks," He repeated. Lily looked at him. His brow was furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and his mouth was pressed into a thin line. He had just realized how little time was left before they were to stand in front of queen and country and say 'I do.'

She rested her hand on his arm, "Are you alright?" She asked, completely ignoring the toned muscles she felt tensing under her touch. Well, as completely as someone could while also acknowledging that they were there.

He blinked and his face shifted, the look from before disappeared and he reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from her face. She hadn't been expecting that and she froze for a moment. He'd been effortlessly affectionate since she'd met him. He was always holding her hands, giving her hugs, offering his arm, and he peppered in the occasional forehead kiss.

But this gesture felt different. It felt more intimate.

"I'm alright," He gave her a small smile, seemingly unaware that he'd just pushed her off a ledge. "I just didn't realize that we were that close to the end of the month." Did friends do that? Did they brush each other's hair out of their face and act all nonchalant about it? Sure she'd messed his hair up last night, but that had been a joke, it was funny. There had not been anything intimate about it.

Though her engagement ring had gotten stuck in his hair. The ring that he'd slid onto her finger only hours earlier.

It wasn't a bad thing though, was it? She had told Mary that she fancied James, and while that feeling was new and scary because she'd only had that realization yesterday, she was getting married to him in two weeks, and there were many, many less desirable ways for an arranged marriage to be going.

"Yeah, that last week and a half has sort of flown by." Now it was her turn to look surprised, and she was the one who had said it. "Have I only known you for a week and a half? That doesn't seem right."

"It doesn't." He agreed.

"You weren't talking to me two days ago."

James rolled his eyes and then climbed into the car. She followed him. "That's not true. I did talk to you."

"Only after I hunted you down and fed you pie." He shrugged.

"I would have talked to you even if you didn't bribe me with a pie."

"You can't prove that."

"I beat you at badminton yesterday." He said, changing the subject. "For the second time."

"And the last time." Lily crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her chin up. She hated that she was so easily distracted.

"We'll see about that next Sunday."

He was smiling at her, and even though she wanted to glare at him, she couldn't help but smile back.

The next interview went about the same, though they didn't ask her if she was pregnant, Lily was sure that Emma had something to do with that.

Lily tried not to dwell on the fact that James was being a bit more than friendly. He didn't say anything of course, but there were a few times when she'd thought that he wanted to say something.

Eleven days. She'd only known him for eleven days.

It seemed as though she'd known him longer.

This was what she was thinking about while she was in her office. She had all the paperwork out, she had a pencil in her hand, she was looking down at the paperwork. If anyone were to walk in, they would think that she was working. They wouldn't know that she was obsessively thinking about James and what every little thing had meant that day.

She huffed angrily. She didn't have time for this. She had already lost the entire morning because of the interviews, she didn't have time to waste now.

She forced her mind to clear for a moment and then went back at the paperwork with a renewed sense of determination.

Which lasted for about three minutes and then she was staring down at her desk again, this time looking at the ring she was wearing on her left hand.

Bertram had tried to convince her that James wasn't what she wanted, but that wasn't true. This wasn't how she wanted him, but she couldn't stop herself from thinking about all the ways in which she would have liked to meet him. All the ways that wouldn't have made her feel slightly sick to her stomach.

She tried to convince herself that Mary had made many good points about how this could all just be a lovely coincidence. She could have accidentally picked the man of her dreams, no matter how ridiculous that sounded.

Because it did sound ridiculous. She fancied him, a little, but that was it. It wasn't as though she was head over heels for him. And he probably didn't fancy her either. He might, but if he did, it was just a little bit too. Because they laughed a lot when they were together and because he thought she was pretty, and they had fun.

She'd fancied a few people before, and she'd never gotten this distracted by them. She could thank the press for that. And her situation.

She'd had to move her laptop and phone to the other side of the room so that she wouldn't be too tempted to look up everything that was being said about her and James online.

And then she had to turn her phone to silent because it had been buzzing every few minutes.

She was dreading turning it back on.

She took a deep breath. She would let herself over think about all of this later. At the moment, she had documents to sign, initiatives to read and meetings to prep for. And only a couple of hours until dinner.

She ended up bringing a bit of her work with her when she left to go down for dinner. She had a few more documents to sign and have Emma send out before eight, but she didn't want to be late either. And more because her stomach was in a rage than because she was worried about Anita scolding her.

She wasn't surprised to see Bertram had decided to rejoin them from meals now that James' friends were gone. She was not happy to see him, however.

If one good thing had come from his accosting her in the kitchen last night, perhaps it was an end to whatever good feelings she got when she was around him. He'd popped the bubble that had left her feeling clueless around him.

"I told Emma that scheduling two interviews on a Monday morning was going to get you too far behind." Anita sighed when she saw Lily walk in with a large file.

Lily shrugged, "It's alright, I got through most of it. These just need a signature and then Emma gets to do the rest." She grinned at Emma who was sitting at the end of the table, also working.

"Oh joy," She gave Lily a quick smile before she went back to her computer screen.

"Evening," James said once she was seated. "You should teach me how to do your signature and then I can help you with those."

"That's illegal." Bertram spoke up.

"I don't think it's technically illegal if he has my permission." She put the file and her pen down and reached for the glass of wine that was already poured for her. She mouthed a 'thank you' to Mary who lifted her own glass in response. She didn't know if it was illegal or not, but that wasn't really the point of her disagreeing with him just then.

"His own name will work for most things after your married." Anita said, choosing not to comment on the legality of James learning to forge Lily's signature.

"I hadn't thought of that," Lily grinned. "I can just have you sign everything."

James shook his head. "You can't say that like it's devious when I just offered to do it."

Lily shrugged. "You offer now, but five or six years of signing everything and you'll be sick of it."

"It's going to take him that long to get sick of signing his name?" Mary asked, to which Lily shrugged and took another sip of her wine. It wasn't her favorite. "I think I'd get tired of it in a few days."

"Well, there's not normally this much," Lily motioned to the file. "It's just the start of the year and my coronation is not that far off… so there's a lot of extra stuff thrown in."

The first course was served, and Lily allowed herself to eat half of it without distraction and then opened the file and started signing in between bites.

"Oh," Emma interrupted her concentration and she looked down to her end of the table. "Before I forget, James, I've talked with Moody and everything is all set for tomorrow."

Lily looks over at James and he's looking down at Emma like he doesn't know what she's talking about either.

"Though you have to wait until after the interview I have scheduled." She adds, no longer looking at anyone.

Lily looks back at James and he shakes his head. "My mum's birthday is tomorrow. I can't believe I forgot."

"Well I didn't," Emma winks down the table without looking up from her laptop.

"I'm going to have dinner with my parent's tomorrow." He says, looking at Lily now. "I'll be back Wednesday though."

Emma nods. "Yes, and there are more interviews- no, you'll get back too late. We're doing the engagement shoot on Thursday morning now. Before the parade." She clicks away furiously at something and then sighs. "And then we have the festival that night- which will be press enough…" She's no longer talking to them.

Lily bit the tip of her tongue and looked down at her Gran. "Am I…" She trailed off.

"No, you're staying here." Emma answered the mostly unspoken question. "Though I did get Euphemia a present from you."

"Oh, how thoughtful of me." Lily ran her tongue over her teeth. She didn't know what else to say, because she wasn't sure if James had asked to go alone, or if this was a decision that Emma and Anita had made without her. She'd like to meet James' parents, and she wasn't sure how it would look, him going home alone just a few days after they got engaged.

"You'll meet them soon enough," Anita had probably just read her mind. "And with everything coming up at the end of the month, you don't have time to take off tomorrow and Wednesday morning."

"Do I get time off at the end of the month?"

"The last week of the month is yours." Emma answered, still looking at her screen. "And then you come back and we all flurry about to get ready for the coronation." She looked up, "Speaking of time off, the two of you should work out where you'd like to go for your honeymoon."

Honeymoon.

Lily made the mistake of glancing at Mary, who had her eyebrows dancing as she shimmied her shoulders. She reached out to take another sip of her wine.

"We'll add that to our list." James spoke for them, which was good, better than them sitting in silence with Mary teasing her and Emma waiting for a response.

"You have a list?" Mary asked, and Lily was glad to see that her face was looking much more respectable now that she was talking to James.

"A list of things to talk about?" James shrugged. "It's not written down anywhere, but yeah."

"Like what?" She asked.

"Mary," Anita reprimanded.

"It's fine," James ran a hand through his hair and reached for his wine glass as well. "But I think you could guess a fair few." Lily didn't know why her heart was beating so quickly. "I mean, the honeymoon isn't the only part of the wedding plans that we'll need to talk about." He looked at Lily, who quickly nodded.

"Yeah, and also we counted today, and realized that we've only known each other for eleven days. So there's just a lot to talk about in general." James nodded now.

"Yeah, like favorite foods to take to the theater,"

"Or favorite Christmas movie," Lily smirked, and James looked like he wanted to roll his eyes.

"I didn't fall asleep last night."

"You most certainly did. I stuck candy canes in your hair." She teased, forgetting that there were other eyes on her.

"Yes, and I knew that you were doing that."

"You were snoring."

"I was not," He hid his mouth behind his wine glass. "And if I did fall asleep, it wasn't because I didn't like the movie you picked."

"Which movie was it?" Anita asked, which shouldn't have made Lily's cheeks go red, but it did anyway.

"A Hallmark movie," Lily cleared her throat. "Santa Clause and Puppy Paws, the one where the girl has that pregnant dog and the bloke helps her find homes for all the puppies."

"I love that one," Mary sighed, resting her chin on her fist. "Though, if my dog had puppies, I would keep them all."

"You've never had a dog before." Lily reminded her.

"Yes, because I'd be an irresponsible dog owner." Mary sighed, "I'd feed them whenever they wanted, teach them to be lazy and then let it get knocked up so that I could keep all its spawn."

"Spawn?" James laughed.

The dessert course came, and Lily was so glad to see that it was chocolate cake with apple cinnamon ice cream.

"So chocolate in any form is your favorite?" James asked.

"Probably," Lily nodded.

"It's kind of an obsession with her." Mary said.

"That's true," Anita agreed. "For the last four years, her entire Christmas list has comprised solely of chocolate items from different parts of the world."

"And socks." Mary added.

Lily shrugged. "I know what I like."

James laughed, "Chocolate and socks? So, you're easy to shop for then?"

"Oh yes, unlike those two who just see something they like and buy it immediately."

"That's not true. I see something I like, I tell Gran, and then she buys it for me. I have no money." Mary said, tilting her head down and then shoving in a bite of cake.

Lily smiled at her and went back to her dessert. She hadn't even noticed that Bertram had left the room before dessert even arrived.

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