#convomary

Mac was in his shop and had been for the past six hours straight. He’d barely stopped for food breaks, whenever he was neverous the only thing he wanted to do was work. Working with his hands calmed him down, seeing things come together, it relaxed him. Thought fat lot of good it was doing today.

Mary was coming from London to visit again. She’d been a few times, and he’d been back to London when he could. But today felt different, because Mac knew what they had to talk about and it was stressing him out so much his thoughts weren’t straight.

She was meant to come soon, she said 4:30. But Mac knew she’d be closer to 5. He’d learnt that one pretty quickly. He’d given her the floo access to his shop, so he wouldn’t have to go back home and let his hands sweat by himself with nothing to do. At least if she came to the shop he’d be able to distract himself until she arrived. So he kept carving the broomstick, a custom design for a Puddlemere United player, of which thanks to his nerves he was far ahead of schedule.

Ben had been doing his healer course for a year, and now he had been sent to St Mungos to finally do some placement in an actual hospital and deal with patients. He was keen to actually begin treating people, and figuring out the correct treatment or spell to use. But for now he was just assisting, he had been assigned to help out Mary MacDonald. 

He had been working at St Mungos for a few weeks now and was starting to get the hang of it all. He picked up a clipboard and went to find Mary. After walking around for a while, he found her in a patients room, walking in with a smile “Morning”

Em’s relationship with her father had always been a difficult one. Not only was there general teenage angst, especially with Malachi winding her up all the time, there was tension because her father was a muggle and didn’t really like the wizarding world that much. But they tried to get along on holidays. It was her Sixth year Christmas break, and she was meant to be staying with her dad and Mac, but she’d gotten in a huge row with her dad and left the house in a stink.

So she found herself on Marys doorstep the day before Christmas Eve, she couldn’t go to her Mums because her Mum was working, that was why she was meant to be staying with her dad in the first place. Also she didn’t want to tell her Mum that she’d fought with her Dad again, it just upset her. Em hoped she wouldn’t be too much of a burden, but she didn’t really have many other places to go, other than the night bus.

So she knocked three times on the door and hoped the bottle of whiskey she’d picked up (knicked) on the way over would soothed the blow for just dropping in.

Em and Marlene had been officially dating now for a few days, but they’d been hooking up for about a month or so before that, and Em wasn’t really sure how to tell Mary about it. Sure Em and Marlene had been friends during school, but they weren’t close. Whereas Mary and Marlene had been friends for years. She didn’t know how Mary was going to react. 

That morning she’d left Mar’s in a huff, quickly getting dressed, they’d uh- slept in so she was a little late to meeting Mary. As soon as she hit the street she went to an alley and apparated to the door of Mary’s apartment, hoping she wouldn’t be too annoyed. “Helloo?” she called, knocking on the door.

Emmeline had locked herself in her office after the daily meeting between her team. She had known there were a few aurors and officials coming from other offices around Europe to confer about the rising danger in the wizarding community. But the thought hadn't even crossed her mind that he would be there. Emmeline had walked into the meeting, expecting to see some random Auror and do her greetings then get on with her day. What had happened was the complete opposite. Emmeline had walked into her supervisors office and been unable to even speak. Tristan had been perched on the edge of her supervisors desk with a smug grin on his face. Em had left as soon as possible and stayed in her office, trying to figure out what the hell to do, or even how to leave her office when she seemed stuck to her desk looking at absolutely nothing.

There was a knock on the door and Emmeline flinched, she was so unnerved and couldn't get control of her thoughts. "Co- come in" she called, flicking her wand to unlock the door.

Mary hadn’t been out since the twins were born. Not properly, sure lunch, an early dinner. But Em couldn’t remember the last time they had gone out for a drink past 8pm. So she had spoken to Reg and convinced him to take care of them for the night so she could take Mary out, possibly threatened. But that couldn’t be proven. 

She rocked up at Mary’s at half-seven and knocked on the door carefully, very aware that the kids could be asleep, but that wasn’t going to kill her buzz, she was very excited, she had a plan that she knew Mary would not only like, but love, and take charge of. An Irish pub crawl. Emmeline couldn’t wait until they were three drinks in and Mary’s accent came back at full force, it was hilarious. “G’devening” she grinned when the door opened.

Emmeline was no stranger to one night stands, it was what she preferred. Usually she was able to pick the person so well that by the time she woke up they had already left, gone while she was sleeping. No stupid note left on her pillow or anything like that.

But every now and then, Well, Em’s judgement must have shifted, or she had drunk too much to pick someone that she knew would leave in the morning. Like this particular morning. She had woken up after a great night with some guy, Jak- Joh- Jerem- Jarrod? Something like that. But as soon as Em sat up in bed, she knew that something was off. She could smell bacon. Fuck. 

Emmeline was not in the headspace for a relationship, she never had been, she didn’t want to be. So bacon in the morning freaked her out. That meant they wanted to hang around, that meant they wanted to see her again. And that meant Emmeline had to call in backup, she got out of bed as sneakily as possible to not alert the guy in the kitchen and quickly scribbled a note to Mary ‘SOS SOMEONE IS COOKING BREAKFAST’ and sent the note off with her owl Vera. Hopefully Mary wasn’t working and would be able to save her. She walked out into the kitchen and was greeted with a very smiley Jak- Jarrod. “Morning!” He said cheerfully, which already annoyed Em. How was he not hungover, she felt her head pounding. “Thought I’d cook as a thanks for letting me stay the night” he said with a laugh, and Em laughed back, hopefully it was believable “My pleasure” she nodded, walking over and filling up a glass of water. And to her horror, Whatever his name was had the audacity to come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist. Like they were a fucking married couple. No way was this happening. Please Mary, please please please.

Emmeline loved Christmas. Really she loved every holiday, it was an excuse to have a few drinks and spend some time with friends, sometimes doing ridiculous things that only just passed as ‘tradition’. One of her favourite Christmas traditions though, had begun a few years ago. Exchanging gifts with Mary. No matter how hard she tried to predict what Mary would buy her, she could never pick it. Because it was always something outrageous, and wildly inappropriate that she definitely would have to hide from her mother.

It was a few days to Christmas and they had planned to meet up, Em was going to France for the actual Day, and spending the weeks following over there. By the time she would get back it would have been well into January, so they decided to exchange a little early that year. She stood in front of the Leaky Cauldron, pulling her beanie tight and rubbing her hands together, waiting for Mary in the cold. She hoped it would be a white christmas, they were her favourites.