AN: Happy Sunday, my friends. I really like this chapter. And the next few chapters are a lot of fun too. So you've got nice things to look forward too.

Hope you all enjoy! Reviewers are my bests friends!


Lily woke up the next morning feeling a little too sweaty, and the need to focus on something that was entirely non-James related. And so, she jumped out of bed before Amelia or Gwen arrived and sat at her desk with her laptop. She couldn't very well loiter in her bed like she would normally choose to do. It was super early, but going back to sleep wasn't really an option just then.

She answered almost every single email in her inbox that she didn't think Emma would want to handle for her, she reworked a speech that she was meant to give to parliament later next week, she looked over her calendar and wrote up two agendas for meetings that she had with different boards. Then when she still found that she had time before she was supposed to go down to breakfast, she checked the log to see who had signed up to have meetings with her her this afternoon when she got back from the schools so she could write out some preliminary notes.

Of course Rosier's name was on the list. And Malfoy's. She had another meeting with Frank Longbottom, that wouldn't be unpleasant at least, though she didn't have any more information for him at the moment and all she could do was give him Alice's information so they could talk directly with one another.

And then she had no more work until later, which made her feel good in the sense that she realized that she hadn't fallen as far behind as she thought she had, given that yesterday had left very little time for work, and she'd had all those interviews earlier in the week. And a lot had been going on with James as well.

The fact that she had no more work to do, however, gave her more time to think. And while she could have and wanted to focus on the dream she'd had last night, or what she was going to change James' name to in her phone, or the look in his eyes when she'd traced her finger over his jaw, instead she realized that today was Friday. Which meant that there was no more pretending that the wedding was about two weeks off.

The wedding was now eight days away, and there was no rounding eight up to fourteen. There was no pretending that in exactly eight days, she would not be stepping into a wedding dress and getting ready to walk down the aisle.

Next weekend wasn't technically the deadline, nor the end of the month, but the month ended on a Friday, and Royal Gryffindor weddings always took place on a Saturday, and the last Saturday of the month was next weekend.

It was easy to think of it as some far off thing, as it was only the seventeenth, which was still technically the middle of the month.

But it wasn't far off.

Her chest tightened and she started pacing back and forth.

She heard her phone buzz a couple of times on her nightstand and ignored it. It was probably James or Mary or Reggie and she didn't want to be talked off the ledge at the moment. She'd ended every single one of her fits by simply making herself stop thinking about it, but she couldn't do that anymore. She had to come to terms with the fact that this was all happening.

This was happening and it was happening soon.

She forced herself to consider what it would be like to be called someone's wife as she picked out which shoes she would wear. She forced herself to imagine what it would be like to slide a ring on his finger as she took down a blazer. She forced herself to consider how the conversation of their honeymoon might go while she picked out a skirt to go with the blazer.

None of this thinking made her heart rate go down, but it also felt good to actually be facing things head on and not ducking her head in the sand. Because this was real, even if it hadn't always felt like it would really happen. Emma and her gran had been planning everything, she hadn't even gone in for a dress fitting yet, and she knew that all of that would be coming very soon. Her gran had been gently reminding her every so often.

She had done what she could to give Lily enough time and space from the actual wedding plans so that she could accept that it was really happening.

She didn't think it actually hit her until she was standing in front of the mirror putting on lipstick. Half of her bottom lip was still unpainted when she froze and her mouth formed a small 'o'.

She would be marrying James in a week.

Because parliament had said that they would take her crown if she didn't.

She was getting married to a man that she fancied, at a wedding that she had no part of planning, because a group of men were afraid to have a single woman in charge of the country.

She felt a bit sick.

If it were for any other reason, she felt like she could get fully on board, she felt like she could smile and maybe even get excited. After all, the more time she spent with James, the less it felt like being tied to him for the rest of her life was a bad thing.

But she was only doing it to appease parliament and that made her feel like she was a bad person. Like she was playing into their hand. Like she was turning her back on all the progress she wanted to make, all the women who had come before her and said that enough was enough.

She bit the tip of her tongue and looked down at the counter.

She couldn't enact change on the scale she needed to if they took her crown though. She'd tried to change their minds, tried to get them to overturn the law, and she' been unsuccessful. She didn't have the time or the backing to try again so she would have to wait until after she was queen, wait until there were new people in parliament, and then she could change things.

Lily hated waiting.

She hated being patient and being told that real change took time. She hated people telling her that she couldn't just snap her fingers and change the minds of people who 'grew up in a different era.' That if things changed too fast it would incite anger and violence.

She hated that when she said that there was already anger and violence, she was met with a shrug that just screamed, 'that's just the way things are.'

She'd been given a platform of power, and yet she felt powerless so much of the time.

Gwen and Amelia knocked on the door and Lily shook herself, finished putting on her lipstick and then walked out of the bathroom, quietly greeting them as they went about making her bed.

"You're up early," Gwen noted. "Trouble sleeping?"

Lily shook her head and stepped around Amelia to retrieve her phone. "No, I slept alright for the most part." She cleared her throat and reminded herself that people couldn't read her mind and that if she didn't tell anyone that she'd had a steamy dream about James last night, then they wouldn't know. "I just wanted to catch up on some work. This week has been so busy. And it's gone by so fast."

"It has been a fast week," Amelia agreed. "And I suppose you wanted to get work out of the way so you can enjoy your birthday weekend." She was smiling at Lily and Lily smiled back.

"Yes, I suppose that was part of my motivation." Though she hadn't thought about the fact that her birthday party was tomorrow evening once. "I do have a lot of friends coming in tomorrow. Will the two of you be there?"

"We will be working, yes." Gwen nodded.

"Well you might have to slack off for an hour or so because we're getting out the slide in the Great Hall!"

"A slide?" Gwen asked, arching a brow as she fluffed a pillow.

"Yes, it goes in between the two staircases," Amelia explained. "You go down it on pillows and blankets. Sometimes entire mattresses. It's great fun."

"So you've done it before?" Lily asked, clapping her hands together in excitement. For all her worrying a few minutes earlier, she knew tomorrow's party would help relieve a lot of stress.

"Yes, at your sixteenth birthday, ma'am." Amelia nodded. "It was my first year in the palace and all the staff played on it before we took it down." She laughed and crossed her arms over her chest. "You should have seen Benjy's eyes light up when someone told him to try and 'surf' down the slide. He made it to the bottom before he tripped over his own feet and fell into Filch!" She laughed and Lily laughed along with her. Filch was the caretaker of the gardens, and he did his job well, if not extraordinarily grumpily. Lily avoided him at all costs.

She felt much better by the time she left her room for breakfast, and decided she was of sound mind enough to check her phone now. She pulled it out and saw that Reggie had texted her a meme of a racoon looking into a garbage can with hearts over his eyes and he'd photoshopped Lily's face onto the meme so it looked like she was in the trashcan.

Reggie: Mary made that, it wasn't me, she's trying to get me in trouble so you uninvite me to your birthday because she doesn't want me around all the princesses that were invited

Lily: Tell her if she keeps calling me trash, I'll introduce you to all the princesses as Lord Fitzwilliam of Bristol and tell them that you're an eligible bachelor

Reggie: You know that I would never actually tell her any of that. She'd be upset with you, but she'd take it out on me and I don't know if I'd come out of it alive.

Lily: Good to see that you're not in an overly dramatic mood this morning

Reggie: ;)

There was also a text from Mary.

Mary: Listen, I know what Reggie is going to tell you but he's a liar and I don't even know how to use photoshop on my phone sooo

Lily: Liessss

There was a text from Emma as well.

Emma: Don't check twitter. I know you said to just let it play out, but I'm not going to do that and I'm going to fix this thing with Bertram. Sorry that I didn't tell you everything that I knew, but I didn't know that it was actually an issue or I would have sat you down and slapped some sense into you weeks ago.

Her texts were always long.

Lily: Glad to see you're feeling better!

And she ignored everything else she'd said. She didn't know what Emma planned to do to 'fix' the situation with Bertram. She knew that the photo of them had blown up far more than the last photo had, but she still thought that the best way to handle things would be to just leave it be. Nothing was actually going to happen between her and Bertram, so why dwell on a photograph.

She slid her phone back into her pocket and pushed the door to the dining hall open. Her gran was seated at the head of the table, James was sitting in his usual spot, Bertram, Mary and Reggie were nowhere to be seen. She tried to pretend that seeing James this morning didn't effect her any differently than it normally did.

"Good morning," She said brightly, pausing to kiss her gran on the cheek and then she took her seat and smiled at James.

"Good morning, darling," Anita grinned. "Your photos have arrived, and I figured that you'd want to see them before they get released them to the public. I don't think Emma has released them yet anyway."

Lily watched her gran slide a manilla envelope across the table. "Well, thank you for trying to get them to me first," She turned to look at James, who she hadn't spoken to yet. Hopefully that didn't seem out of the ordinary. "Do you think I'll look as cold as I was?"

He smiled. "I don't know if they've managed to capture chattering teeth in a still photograph yet, but possibly."

Anita rolled her eyes. "I told Emma if you ended up getting sick from that shoot, I was going to have to suspend her. I don't know what she was thinking."

Lily slid the photographs out of the envelope and was taken aback. "She was thinking that they would turn out amazing," She said quietly. Just as with most photoshoots she'd been a part of since she'd taken on the role as princess, she didn't feel like she was looking at a picture of herself. Pictures of her included baseball caps, bubblegum, Mary and denim. She didn't know who that girl wrapped up in James was, but it didn't feel like her. She remembered standing out by the cliffs, but she did not remember looking like some ethereal being that controlled the waves crashing up against the rocks.

The color contrast, as Emma had promised, was amazing and beautiful and Lily couldn't stop looking at the little details that she hadn't noticed yesterday. They way her gowns had been swept up in the wind, how the grey sky reflected off the embellishments making them look like they were glowing.

They didn't look candid, not like the picture from the greenhouse, but they did look like they were having fun, they looked like they were at ease with one another, excited for their future, all the things couples in engagement photos should look. That girl, whoever she was, she looked as though she could be in love with James. She didn't look like she'd spent the whole ride to the cliffs trying to decide if she was angry with him or simply resigned.

She looked over at James and then back at the pictures.

"They're beautiful," She said, sliding them over so he could get a better look.

"You both look stunning." Anita agreed.

Lily nodded, looking at the photographs again. "That doesn't look like me." She said quietly.

Anita looked over at the pictures and shook her head. "It definitely looks like you, Lily. We're not going to pretend that they're not photoshopped, but all they did was play with the color."

That wasn't what Lily had meant, but she didn't know how to explain it to her gran, so she just shrugged. "Half of my toes were entirely white by the end of the shoot. I don't think there was any blood in my feet at all."

She was starting to feel like she was in a fishbowl again.

"When are the pictures going out?" James asked, just as Emma walked into the dining hall.

"They are out now." She grinned. "Which will definitely eclipse that other picture from yesterday. Moody still hasn't found out who sold it, by the way. But we're going to be talking to year ten kids today, so you better be prepared for questions about Bertram."

"Yes, I also have questions about Bertram." Anita clasped her hands together and looked between James and Lily. Lily took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, looking over to where Moody stood in the corner of the room. He nodded and walked out into the hallway, to make sure that no one would overhear the conversation they were about to have.

"Bertram told James that he was going to try and seduce me into giving up my crown."

"Not using those words exactly," James said quickly.

"But that was the gist of it." Emma nodded, for once, her phone was laying face down on the table. She was in Mary's usual spot at the table. Anita looked around at all of them.

"I only found out about this a couple days ago." Lily said. "James told me after he got back from his parents' house."

"Emma?"

"I had my suspicions from the start, but you said, 'keep your enemies close' and whatnot. Then James shared some information with me, but I didn't have any proof-"

"That doesn't mean you don't tell me!" Anita interrupted.

"I second that," Lily chimed in. "I mean, I'm glad that I worked out on my own that they bloke is a pounce, but still. I could have had far less to stress over."

"Knowing that he's after your crown would have given you less to stress over?"

Lily shrugged. "I know that doesn't sound right, but yeah." Anita narrowed her brow. "Look, now I know his game, and I can play into it. The wedding is in- it's in eight days. All we have to do is keep him convinced that no one knows what he's up to for eight more days."

James sighed and Lily turned toward him. He hadn't looked pleased about this when she'd told him as much yesterday, but they hadn't really gotten the chance to talk about it. "Do you really think that he's going to keep playing the same game though? I mean, he's going to eventually realize that you're going to go through with the wedding, even if he believes that you're falling in love with him. You think he's just going to bow out gracefully?"

Anita still looked bristled from having been kept in the dark, and Lily understood that. She should have gone to her gran after James had told her the truth, but she hadn't been ready to share it all just then. And there hadn't been time yesterday. She could have made time, but instead she'd just had a lot of really tense and flirty interactions with James.

She bit her tongue. "No. I don't think that he'll just bow out gracefully. But I also want to be there and watch his stupid face when he realizes that I'm just pretending."

It's a shame that he's not what you want.

Fuck off Bertram. James was great and she was lucky to be tied to him.

"It seems like you're playing a dangerous game. Especially if we have a mole in the castle."

"Moody will find the mole before I talk to Bertram again." Unless he cornered her in the kitchen again. But then she would just run off or call for a cook or any of the dozens of things she should have done the first time she had been alone with him.

"Yes, but don't you think it would be better if we simply told him that his stay here at the castle had run its course." Anita said.

"Sure, and let him go and whisper poison about me to the members of parliament? His words carry more weight than mine do with those men and he knows it." She remembered their conversation from the garden. She should have known so many times over just how not great Bertram really was. "You are the one who said that it's best to keep your enemies close. When we invited him here in the first place we were sure that he had nefarious intentions. I'm the only one that got the wool pulled over my eyes."

Anita gave Lily a look and then reached for her tea. "Did he accept the position with Alice Fortescue?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure how sincere he was." Lily shook her head. "I offered, but he wasn't as interested as soon as he realized that I'm not on the board. Which is dumb, because if there was one truthful thing he said, it was what he said about his mother."

"He was being truthful about his mother," Anita nodded. "But he was raised by his uncle, and his uncle has always wanted him to be king." She sighed. "I was hoping that he was being truthful about his intentions here, but I've known his uncle for a long time. Bertram might have been a sweet boy at one point in time, but he's full of anger and ambition now, and that's a dangerous combination."

Most men were angry when they didn't get their way. But she didn't say that, she just sighed. "So you think we should just kick him out then? I mean, I did tell him to leave yesterday if he couldn't behave himself." And if he was still here, that meant that he hadn't given up on this particular plan yet.

Anita sighed. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to keep him around for the rest of the weekend. Less free time for his uncle to come up with another plan."

Emma nodded, glancing at her phone as it buzzed on the table and then up at Lily. "And so long as you're staying away from him until Moody finds out who the mole is, I suppose we don't have anything to worry about." She looked over at Anita. "I'm doing some press today to talk up the wedding and maybe Sunday we can do brunch or some wedding planning activity, nothing that would take too long but we'll have guests so," She tapped her fingers against the table and shrugged a shoulder. "I'm open to suggestions."

Lily shook her head. "Great segway, and nothing that's early in the morning. I plan to not get too much sleep tomorrow night. My fancy friends are coming from all over the world and we're turning the staircase into a slide. Also, I've got to beat James at badminton on Sunday morning."

Anita laughed and Emma smiled at her. James looked confused. "We're doing what to the staircase?"

Lily laughed now. "We're turning it into a slide! It's so much fun, we've done it a few times since I moved here. Grans the best at it."

"The best at sliding?" James brows was still narrowed.

"No," Gran shook her head. "No, queens don't slide. I fly."

"She stands on a mattress and surfs down the slide." Lily grinned,

Now his brows were raised. "Really?"

"Don't look so surprised," Anita grinned. "I know how to have fun."

"Speaking of fun, you should come to the schools today, Gran. If you don't, people will start to ask about your health."

"That is not a fun thing to talk about. Besides, I'm healthy."

"Yes but gossip doesn't rely on the truth and I was pulling an Emma," Lily shrugged.

"I liked it," Emma was back on her phone. "And I agree with Lily. We don't need questions about your health circulating, and having the public see the three of you together will be good. Yesterday you were only sitting in a carriage, though the press did get some very nice family shots of the three of you." Lily glanced over at James, without turning her head. She wondered if his stomach felt weird when Emma had included him as part of their family. It wasn't a bad weird though.

Anita nodded. "Yes, well I was planning on going anyway. I promised one of the students at St. Catherine's that I would bring her a book the next time I saw her."

"Oh, good memory," Emma snapped her fingers. "Because I had forgotten about that. Also, stop promising people things so I don't have to remember them please."

Anita waved off her comment. "I'm going to get the book, you two can finish breakfast. Emma… do whatever it is that you do."

"Right'o, boss." Emma gave her a mock salute and then left the room, somehow easily avoiding the door even though her eyes were glued to her phone.

Once they were alone, James looked at her with a smirk and tilted his head. "So?"

"I haven't decided yet!" She said, knowing exactly what he was going to bring up.

"What do you mean you haven't decided!"

"That isn't a phrase that normally has a secret meaning. I mean that I haven't thought of something good yet."

"Do you need help?" He asked, turning back to his food and reaching for his orange juice. "You could call me 'Prince Charming,' or-"

"Prince Charming? Excuse you, I'm the princess here."

"Right, I'm just a lowly, Lord. But Lord Charming doesn't really have the same ring to it."

"I'll figure out something."

"Best badminton player ever, is another option."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I really don't think I need your help."

"I've given you two really good options." James grinned. "I don't know why you can't see that."

She took a bite of her toast and then turned toward him, letting her knees brush up against the side of his leg. "When are your friends coming back?"

"Wednesday."

"Your parents?"

"Sunday." James pushed his glasses up his nose. "When is your mum coming?"

Lily shifted in her seat. "Friday." She tried to smile, but she was kind of jealous. James' parents were coming in just a couple of days, and they would be here for almost a week before the wedding. Her mum would be here Friday and then she would leave on Sunday. Petunia wasn't coming at all. "I'm very excited about meeting your parents. You've done amazing work making your mum sound like a bad arse."

James laughed and nodded. "She definitely would be glad to hear that." He sat up a bit straighter and cleared his throat.

"It is what it is, James." She said before he could ask. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder. James turned his head and kissed the top of her head.

"Did you just get toast crumbs in my hair?"

"Maybe." He reached up with his free hand and mused her hair.

oOo

It was a long day, to be sure, but it could have gone worse.

Going to the schools was always fun, even if they did ask some more difficult questions, James was able to jump in and answer a few of them for Lily and she appreciated that. And then dealing with individual parliament members was never super fun, but Lily had a few very good conversations that she hoped would make way for positive change in the near future.

Even though she didn't leave her office feeling defeated, as she sometimes did, she still went straight to her room and took off her heels and her skirt and then fell backward onto her bed and pulled her hair band out.

She felt like she hadn't had a good lie about in her knickers in a long time, so she grabbed the remote, flipped to Crikey it's the Irwins and then pulled out her phone, scrolling through her private Instagram account that she used to keep track of her secondary and uni friends.

The first picture was of Michael, which was a little weird, because he didn't post too often. But there he was, his arms around his band members and a big smile on his face. The photo was captioned, 'L.A. here we come! Nothing can stop us now!' Lily rolled her eyes, wondering how Michael could have posted something so generic, Mary would give him shit for that though, so Lily just scrolled to the next picture after liking it.

Petunia shared a picture of Dudley eating cookie batter off of a beater, then there was a picture of Lydia Prewett, one of the girls she graduated Uni with. It was a picture of her standing in front of the Eiffel tower. Lily liked both of them and then scrolled through pictures of dogs and babies and books and food.

Mary and Reggie both texted her in their group text, and she responded, because they weren't asking her to do anything or to leave her room. Emma texted her about some emails and Lily texted back that she was off for the weekend.

Then she decided to text James, because she didn't always need him to text her first. She knew that they still needed to have a grown-up conversation, and that she still wasn't doing everything she should be doing, but she thought that she was doing a lot better. She didn't think Sirius would be mad at her, at any rate. She asked James what he was doing and then watched Teri Urwin give an old tiger a checkup.

James: waiting for dinner. You?

Lily: Watching the urwins and scrolling through my phone.

She almost added that she wasn't wearing her skirt, but she refrained, thinking that that was more sexy flirty than she was willing to be at the moment.

And now she was thinking about the dream and the fact that she was in nothing but her pants on her bed, while texting James. She licked her lips and closed her eyes for a moment.

She had to get her shit together.

Which she'd been telling herself all month of course, and it had yet to happen, so it probably wouldn't happen for a while, but that wasn't an easy thing to accept.

James: royals

James: theyre just like us

Lily: I think the public would be woefully disappointed if they knew just how much I was completely normal.

James: you are extraordinary so I don't really know what youre talking about

Lily made a strange humming noise and tilted her head back and forth. Was she supposed to tell her fiancé that she fancied him? Was that what was supposed to happen next?

But then she thought about the other half of the dining room moment from yesterday, how unsure and freaked out she'd been, how she'd asked him not to try and talk to her about things until after the weekend.

James: youre obligated to let me know if I made you blush since I cant see you

Lily: Is that in a contract somewhere?

James: i can get one drawn up if you need legal consequences to be the stakes here

Lily: You didn't make me blush, but I do like it when you say nice things about me so I was enjoying the moment.

What the hell did that mean? She stared at her text, wishing that there was an undo button. Enjoying the moment? Was that as cringy as she thought it was? James wouldn't say anything though, he would just continue to tease her.

James: i could say nice things about you all day if youd like

She bit her lip and shook her head. He probably would to.

Lily: I'd actually appreciate it more if you started using some punctuation. I feel like you've been extra terrible lately just because you know it bothers me.

He sent a gif of a woman with a hand over her heart, looking completely baffled that she could be accused of anything.

James: i would never do that

Lily: Phones automatically correct a lot of the mistakes you're making, so I think that you would, my dear.

James: maybe u should come up with a 'moniker' for me soon

James: i could alwayz devolve a little more

Lily: You know, if anyone ever hacks into our phones, this is the kind of shit that they are going to find.

Lily: you teasing me with the letter z

James: saucy i know

James: every1 would be scandalizzzed

Lily: I'm not going to text you anymore if this is what I have to look at.

The three little dots appeared and then Lily was humming Honey Honey.

James: I'm choosing to take your threat seriously.

Lily: Wise choice. My next threat was to make your name 'Jim' in my phone

James: I'm behaving, there's no need for that.

James: Are you excited for your party tomorrow?

Lily: So very excited! I get to introduce Reggie to a lot of people that he's heard Mary and I go on about forever. Do you know Marlene McKinnon?

James: She's a family friend. She'll be there?

Lily: Of course, I adore her! And Dorcas Meadows! She's wonderful

James: I know Dory, she is wonderful

Lily: Completely!

James: Do you wanna hang out tonight? After dinner?

James: Or do you have plans with Mary and Reggie?

Lily: He's here to see Mary. Tomorrow he's here for me, but I don't have much interest in being their third wheel again. I've played that part. What did you want to do?

James: Nothing special. Just want to spend time with you.

Somehow that made her more nervous than she would have been had he said that he wanted to do something romantic. If he'd suggested a starlit stroll through the gardens, or a candlelit dessert raid in the kitchens, she wouldn't feel her heart creeping up into her throat. Or she might have but at least she would know the parameters of an actual date.

But he hadn't defined anything by saying what he said. Just wanting to spend time with someone felt more intimate to her than going on a date. Just spending time together was a lot scarier than him suggesting that they watch movies or play chess or badminton or any other activity.

The three dots popped up again, but there were no songs in her head now. They disappeared. She was making him nervous. She clenched her jaw and responded.

Lily: Oh, my time? Is that all you're asking for?

Lily: I suppose I'm willing to give it

James: Thank you ever so much, your highness.

She didn't know for certain that he was nervous, but she felt like she knew him well enough to read him over his texts, and he seemed nervous to her. It didn't make her any calmer though, if he was nervous then he was also thinking that there was a reason to be nervous. If he'd been calm about everything, then there wouldn't be anything to be nervous about and everything would just be in her head again, as usual.

Lily: See you soon, Jim

James: ttly

Lily: Shorthand bothers Reggie, not me.

James: well then i guess we go back to mizpelling and bad grammar

[Lily has sent a screenshot]

Jim: thiz is now war

Lily: Bring it, Potter.