Mary had been planning to catch up with Lily later in the day when she was less taken up by the potions demonstrations but she had been a little over-excited when she saw a Fortescue’s stand selling earl grey ice cream and had bought it before it occurred to her that ice cream wasn’t something she could just save for later. Even Fortescue’s never-melting ice cream that lasted longer than most. It wasn’t like she could pop it in her purse while she looked at what else the festival had to offer. So, she waded through the crowds with a few anxious looks around that made her regret deciding to do this without the back up of any of their other friends to find Lily.

Mary had seen most sides of Lily at this point. The best and the worst. She had seen her awe-inspired and cheerful and excited and she had seen her homesick and sick from a cold and tearful. Mary liked to think she was pretty good both at reading Lily’s moods and at fixing them when they weren’t so positive. With a lot of people, anger would make Mary stay away but Lily was different. Mary knew Lily, so she knew she was justified in being so upset, no matter what had caused it.

Justified or not, she still didn’t like seeing Lily like this. She put one hand over her cheek and with the other guided Lily to sit down. “Lily, Lily, Lily, breathe for me, okay?” And she used the same exaggerated breaths that Lily had used with her in the past to get her to calm down when things had become too much. “I really need you to calm down because even though everything is not okay you’re the only one of us who’s brilliant enough to do anything about it and you need your head on you to be able to do that, don’t you? Shh, shh... no.” She put her finger over Lily’s mouth to stop her from trying to talk. “Don’t talk, just breathe.”

They stayed like that until Lily’s body stopped shaking with emotion at which point Mary pulled her into a hug. “Now what can I do to help?”