AN: Okay, so this chapter is super fun and I'm not going to try and tell you otherwise. Mary and Lily are together for most of it and I cackled while editing it and writing it and I wish the entire fic could just be Mary running wild!

Enjoy, my friends


The interviews in the morning went about the same as they had the day before, which was good, because that meant that there hadn't been any surprises. Lily preferred all interactions with the media to go off without any surprises, so she was pretty happy with the outcome. She was also thrilled that no one aside from Emmeline had thought it was okay to ask her if she was pregnant.

James seemed more himself today. Or more how she had gotten used to him behaving anyway and so she was feeling good about that as well.

She was glad that they'd had a moment to themselves last night, because they did not have one this morning.

With James leaving, Emma was using all traveling time to and from the different stations to update and inform them on what was going on and what they needed to be doing and who was saying what and- Lily wasn't sure she actually listened much. She figured if it was actually important, her Gran would tell her about it later. It wasn't as though Emma was telling her anything about the government, only the social side of things. Which was important, and she knew that she should be listening, but her mind was already on the meetings that she would be holding all afternoon.

So when they got back, Lily said goodbye to James with Mary and her Gran standing right beside her, which was fine, but made her feel the need to be a bit less familiar with him. She still gave him a big hug though.

Once he'd walked out the door, she pulled out her phone and started toward her office, but then Emma caught her by the arm.

"You need to go and wave to him on the steps." She said, apparently this was one of the things that Lily hadn't listened to in the car. She looked toward her Gran.

"That seems a bit unnecessary." Lily said. Anita shrugged.

"It's an easy thing to do, Lily. And it looks good."

"It looks sweet," Emma added.

"People aren't going to notice-"

"You're right, but I still want you to do it," Emma ushered her toward the door and Lily sighed before doing as she was told.

James hadn't yet gotten in his car yet, and when he saw her, he started in her direction instead of getting in his car. She didn't know how to tell him that he didn't need to do that without shouting it out, and she figured that would have the opposite effect that Emma was going for with this, waving goodbye stunt.

"Alright, Evans?" Lily blinked, and James was about halfway up the stairs. She bit her lip and walked down a few herself to meet him in the middle.

"I'm alright," She nodded. "Evans?" He shrugged. "Emma told me to come out and wave goodbye from the steps. She says it'll seem romantic." She felt like her cheeks were red, but she could blame that on the cold if she had to.

James nodded, only two steps away now. "Yeah, she told me that she was going to have you come out here while you were ignoring her in the car." And then he was only a step below her, and his arms were wrapping around her middle. "I figured I could steal another hug."

She sighed and hugged him back.

He kissed her cheek when he stepped back, pausing only a few inches away with a mischievous smirk. "I'm going to miss you."

Lily clicked her tongue. "I'll see you tomorrow, James."

"I know, but I'll still miss you." He was still smiling.

"You won't have the chance if you never leave," She shot back.

"Always so difficult." He shook his head and finally stepped back, putting the proper amount of distance between them.

"Have a good time," Lily waved him off. "Tell everyone I say 'hullo!'"

"Will do," He waved as well and then he was jogging down the steps. He stopped at the door of his car, which Moody had opened, probably to try and get him to hurry up so they could leave. But he stopped anyway and turned to wave at her. He winked and Lily almost rolled her eyes, but then decided to blow him a kiss instead. He pretended to catch it of course and then slipped into the car. Moody looked about ready to roll his eyes and almost slammed the door behind him. Lily laughed and waved again before she turned around and headed back into the castle.

"You were supposed to wait until the car was pulling away!" Emma said as soon as she stepped back inside.

Lily shrugged. "I think you'll be happy with what they got."

"Only because James is better at this than you are," Emma did roll her eyes, and Lily understood her frustration, so she didn't say anything about it. She pulled out her phone again and started toward her office.

Lily Evans: I suppose I'll miss you a little bit.

Mary fell into step beside her and linked their arms. "So," She said, tilting her head as she looked at Lily. Which Lily thought was showing off since she would have fallen flat on her face if she'd tried to walk and tilt her head while looking at Mary and talking all at once.

"So?" Lily repeated.

"Lily, I think your fiancé fancies you a great deal."

"Mary, let's not do this. I've already told you-"

"He just ran up the stairs to kiss your cheek! It was really cute and really sweet and the boy lights up whenever he sees you!"

Lily frowned. "No, Mary. James and I are friends."

"But you told me-"

"I did, yes, but that doesn't change anything. I've only known him for twelve days now. Don't you think it's wise not to rush into anything?" Now it was Mary's turn to frown.

"Maybe it is, but it's no fun." She huffed. "I mean you're going to marry him in like, two weeks! Why can't you just snog him already?"

Lily almost let her head fall back so she would be looking up at the ceiling, but they were still walking, and she didn't want to fall. "Because!"

"That's not a good reason!"

"It's a very good reason! It doesn't feel right."

"How come?"

Lily stopped walking for a moment and shifted from one foot to the other. "Because it just doesn't. Things are complicated enough without those feelings being added to the mix. And I feel as though the entire thing is negated because I wouldn't be doing any of this if Parliament wasn't making me!"

Mary nodded, "That's true. You wouldn't be getting married to James if Parliament wasn't making you. But now you have the opposite problem. Which is to say, that you're not snogging him because of Parliament."

Lily narrowed her eyes. "That's not going to work."

"What's not going to work?" She asked too innocently.

Lily started walking toward her office again. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, but she couldn't very well pull it out now, not with Mary right there and ready to give her shit for whatever James had replied. "Your reverse psychology."

"That's not what I'm doing! I'm just pointing out the facts. You said that you can't kiss him because of parliament."

"I did not say that." She huffed in frustration and almost stamped her foot. "I said that it feels weird because of parliament. It feels like whatever James and I could have is cheapened or false because of parliament, because of how we met, because of how we didn't meet." She tucked her hair behind her ear and stopped walking again, turning to face, Mary. "Look, I've taken off two mornings this week and I have a lot of work to catch up on. We'll talk later, alright?"

"I get it okay!" She called after Lily. "But you do have a choice! You just haven't realized it yet!"

Lily wasn't sure what that meant, but she didn't really want to dwell on it, so she just kept marching away.

"I saw that Lord Potter left this afternoon," Rosier had come into her office a few moments ago and Lily had been tapping her pen against her desk ever since.

"Yes, it's his mother's birthday." She didn't need to give him an explanation, but one fell from her lips anyway.

"I see," He smiled at her. "And why are you not accompanying him?"

Lily smiled back at him, "If I had gone with him, you'd be asking me why I thought it was okay to slack on my duties to the kingdom for a boy. There's just no winning with you, is there, Rosier?"

He frowned and Lily kept smiling.

"Now, I believe you wanted to talk about your bill proposal?"

"Yes," He sat up straighter, and for the next ten minutes or so, Lily believed that they were actually going to stick to business, that he was done giving her a hard time about her personal life. Not that James was her personal life. He was by and far her public life. At least anything that Rosier could comment on would be her public life. That was yet another reason why things felt off with James.

"If you add the amendments that we talked about, then I will back the proposal," Lily nodded, reaching for her water and taking a sip. "We can bring it to the floor on Thursday."

"Oh? Will you be in on Thursday? I heard that you were having photos done." Was that public knowledge yet?

"Next Thursday. Or had you forgotten about the parade and the festival taking place this week?"

"Of course I remember, I was one of the first people to back that proposal. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't have too much on your plate," He stood up and started to gather his things. "A monarch with-"

"Please spare me your speeches. Every single monarch before me has had to deal with more than just parliament. They all had spouses, they all had families, they all had hobbies. They didn't just sit in this room until they died." She was standing now too. "Let Flitwick know that he can come in now."

He blinked at her, surprised. She was surprised as well. She'd never got quite that far, had she? Shut him down and kick him out all in one go? She was pretty proud of herself.

Dinner with her Gran and Mary was pretty quiet that night. It took her a while to notice that Bertram wasn't there. And when she did notice, she didn't ask about him, she just assumed that he'd gone to his uncle's for dinner.

She was almost back to her room when she wondered when she stopped having complicated feelings for Bertram. Well, not complicated, just more feelings than she wanted to have. Had it been just because he was there, and no one had been telling her to have feelings for him?

Had they stopped when he told her that his uncle's paper had run that story about the two of them? With that sad photo of James in the background?

Had it been before or after she'd made fun of the books he read with Sirius? (Or to Sirius, he hadn't wanted to participate.)

Did she still have feelings for him now?

She hadn't felt anything good toward him when they had ran into each other in the kitchen the other night. When he'd tried to convince her that she was making a mistake by marrying James. He hadn't said that outright of course, but that was what she felt like he was trying to do. He definitely wasn't trying to make her feel good about the situation.

She shook her head. He had never made her feel good about herself or her choices, so she was glad that she spent so little time thinking about him now.

She was getting into bed when she finally got the chance to check her phone.

James Potter: Don't miss me too much

And then six hours later...

James Potter: Alright, a little more than you are would be fine though

Lily smiled and settled against her pillows, turning on the tv before she replied.

Lily Evans: I didn't mean to bruise your ego. But I'm off work now, so if I go another six hours without replying, this time it will be on purpose.

He was back home and with his friends, and it wasn't even eight yet, so she knew that he wasn't going to respond, so she dug around for her charger and then climbed back out of bed to shower and change so she could actually go to bed.

When she got out of the bathroom, Mary was on her bed with a giant tub of pretzels.

"You know it's a sin to watch Hallmark movies without me, right?"

"I just turned on the tv and that's what was on."

"Sure," Mary shoved a few pretzels in her mouth. "Your phone keeps buzzing. I don't know why you got a new passcode, so it's also locked for another five minutes or so."

"Stop trying to break into my phone all the time," Lily rolled her eyes and crawled into bed, stealing a few pretzels before she checked her phone. It was locked for another three minutes. She looked up at the tv. "Have we seen this one?"

"A couple times," Mary nodded. "It's the one with the gingerbread house competition."

"Fetch,"

"Yeah." Mary nodded. "We didn't make a gingerbread house this year."

"We didn't," Lily agreed. "I don't really like gingerbread."

"That's not the point of a gingerbread house."

"I suppose that's fair."

"We've had this conversation before."

"Guess it's time to call it quits then. We've been friends for too long."

"Yeah, I'd like to trade you in. I need a friend who listens to me."

"Me too." Lily nodded, reaching over to take more pretzels." They watched the movie quietly for a minute and Lily wanted to pick up her phone, but she didn't want Mary to know that she wanted to pick up her phone, so she had to wait until the commercial break.

James Potter: My ego is fine I suppose. I mean, I guess you have an important job.

James Potter: Mum says thank you for the gift as well

James Potter: You got her alpaca fur gloves and a scarf. Very thoughtful.

James Potter: Also, I don't know if you're ignoring me on purpose now or if you just fell asleep waiting for me to respond, but I'm choosing to take it personally.

Lily had to bite her lip to keep from snorting.

Lily Evans: Alpaca fur is very soft, I got some for Christmas and I must have assumed that she would love it as much as I do

Lily Evans: And good, you should take it personally

Lily Evans: Mary tried to guess my passcode while I was in the shower and ended up locking my phone

James Potter: I should have known that it would be Mary related. It's always Mary related.

Lily Evans: That's true enough. We're watching a Hallmark movie. You'd probably have fallen asleep by now.

James Potter: Like better movies? I don't know what to tell you

Lily Evans: Rude

James Potter: You ripped out some of my hair, who's the real rude one?

Lily Evans: Don't even start with me

"Excuse me," Mary reached over and tugged on her hair. "You're missing the movie." She pointed up at the screen and Lily turned her screen off even though she saw that James had responded already, and then reached for more pretzels.

"I've seen it a few times already," Lily reminded her.

"I know that." She was smirking, Lily could hear it in her voice, but she wasn't going to look. "I mean, if you have something that you'd rather be doing then I suppose that would be alright."

Lily clenched her teeth together. She didn't know why it bothered her so much that Mary was being supportive and encouraging about her feelings toward James. She shouldn't feel like that. It was just one of the many reasons that this all felt off.

She was going to have to get over it, because Mary wasn't going to change, and she did want to see what James had replied.

She let out a dramatic sigh and pulled her phone out, unlocking the screen as Mary started cackling like the mad woman she was. "I'm telling Reggie that I was right. He's going to feel so foolish."

"You weren't right about anything, you were entirely, 100% wrong."

"Thank you for that, now he'll have to believe me." Mary blew her a kiss and then pulled out her own phone.

James Potter: I think I might like winding you up actually

James Potter: Though if you're going to retaliate by leaving me on 'read' then I'll apologize

Lily let her three little dots hover for a moment and then turned off her screen again. She wasn't actually upset of course, but she did want to see if he'd actually apologize.

He did.

James Potter: I see how it is.

James Potter: I'm terribly sorry for calling Hallmark movies shit, and for reminding you that you ripped out my hair.

Lily Evans: Your apologies are shit

Lily Evans: And I gave you an honest apology for pulling your hair, you're not allowed to give me a hard time for that anymore.

James Potter: Oh? Is that how it works?

"You ripped out his hair!" Mary shrieked and Lily twisted her body quickly so that the screen was facing entirely away from Mary, though she was too late of course.

"You're reading over my shoulder!" Lily shrieked back.

"WELL APPARENTLY I HAVE TO!"

"You most certainly do not, and keep your voice down."

James Potter: And my apologies are pretty fantastic

Lily Evans: Hold on, Mary's about to attack me. Pray for my safety

She turned her screen off and shoved her phone under her pillow so Mary wouldn't take it and get it locked again.

Mary stood up and started jumping up and down on the bed, knocking pretzels everywhere. "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! YOU'VE SNOGGED HIM!"

"Sit down before you hurt yourself!"

"No! I was right and I don't know why you were lying to me, but I don't even care! Because I was right and you've-"

"I have not snogged him, and I wouldn't lie to you. You know that."

Mary paused in her jumping and narrowed her eyes.

"Then how did you rip out his hair."

"I don't know what kind of snogger you think I am, but I've never purposefully ripped out a bloke's hair before."

"Never?" Mary dropped to her knees and cocked her head to the side.

"No!"

"Well sometimes they're into that," Mary shrugged. "But don't distract me! How did you rip out his hair if you didn't snog him? Answer me that one!"

"My ring got stuck in his hair! There was no snogging!"

"Why," Mary started talking very slowly, "Was. Your. Hand. In. His. Hair?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Because it was all proper looking, and I was teasing him about it, and then he told me that I could fix it-"

"AHHHH!"

"Shut up, Mary!" Lily covered her face with her hands.

"That's almost better than you kissing him- I mean, it's not, but almost. I still think that you should snog him of course, but we're getting there."

Lily uncovered her face and pressed her lips together, "I know that you're teasing me, but you didn't see him when he said it! His ears were all red!"

Mary laughed at her again and then reached out and pulled her into a hug. "Ah, Lily! You're such a dork, and so is James and I'm just glad that you like him."

"He's fine," Lily was never one to pass up a hug though, so she hugged her friend back, but she still added a pinch when Mary pulled back.

"Ow!" She held her arm. "And you said that wrong. He's fine, is how you should have said that."

"Stop, someone might hear you."

"I should call him."

"No, you shouldn't."

"Alright, you should call him."

"No, I shouldn't."

"You miss him don't you."

"No! I was just talking to him, I saw him all morning!"

"Aw, you miss him!"

"Mary, leave me alone. The movie is back on." Lily fell back against her pillows and pretended as though she was paying attention to the movie. Mary laid down practically on top of her and pulled out her phone.

"I'm not ever going to leave you alone, don't you dare suggest such a thing."

"I thought you wanted to trade me in,"

"Nope. You're stuck with me. Now I'm going to text Reggie and if you wanted to take your phone back out, I'll pretend not to see anything if you want."

Lily bit the tip of her tongue. "Don't read my texts." She said, and then pulled her phone back out.

James Potter: Oh no. How long should I wait to presume that you're in a coma?

James Potter: You cant answer that because Mary is attacking you smh

James Potter: I'm not sure I've prayed since I was a kid but I'll have a go at it

James Potter: Sirius just told me he prays to the ghost of Freddie Mercury

James Potter: I'll try that too

Lily Evans: I'm glad to know that you can keep up a conversation on your own. Am I even needed here?

Lily Evans: Mary is now curled up against me like a cat. It appears that the danger has passed.

James Potter: Of course youre needed here.

James Potter: What set her off?

Lily Evans: She saw your text accusing me of ripping out your hair

James Potter: ah. She was jealous.

Lily Evans: I hope you know that I'm rolling my eyes

James Potter: Yes, I can feel it all the way out here.

Lily Evans: Good

James Potter: What did you say to Mary to get her to be cat like?

Lily Evans: I said a bunch of mean things. Like 'i don't want to be friends any more' and 'leave me alone' 'get out of my room' 'you're never been right about anything in your life'

Lily Evans: Clearly things escalated. I'm fairly sure she's tattling to Reggie now

James Potter: I have no idea what kind of fight you two were having now

James Potter: Was she not just teasing you?

Lily Evans: She's got no bloody right to tease me

James Potter: Alright, I think that clears things up

James Potter: Tell your best friend that I think she's great.

Lily Evans: I won't. And don't tell me what to do.

James Potter: Alright. On an unrelated note, can I have Mary's number?

Lily Evans: As soon as you give me Sirius' number. I've got a picture I want to send him.

James Potter: touche

James Potter: Now that we've established that we're never trading numbers

Lily Evans: I'll get his number eventually

"Alright, Reggie is just as excited as I am." Mary tossed her phone aside and Lily let hers fall against her chest. "I'm not going to read anymore! You have a right to your privacy now that I know that you're flirting with him properly."

Lily rolled her eyes. "What does that even mean." Mary opened her mouth. "Don't answer me!"

"Fine. I just feel so vindicated."

"Literally nothing has changed."

"Yeah, okay," Mary pulled her head back, giving herself a few more chins as she pursed her lips.

"I mean, we're getting to know each other better but-"

"I think it's actually better for you if you don't try and explain it, okay? Just do what you want, and I'll do what I want. And what I want is to tease you as much as I possibly can, because you haven't fancied a bloke in about six years, and at one point you fancied my brother of all people, which I don't give you enough shit for as it is. Deal?" She stuck her hand out as though she was being reasonable.

"No deal!" Lily laughed and grabbed a few pretzels to chuck at her.

"I love you, Lily Bean."

"I love you too, Mary Lu." Then she frowned. "But I'm not sure how much I like you right now."

"A whole bunch!" Mary laughed, throwing more pretzels at her.