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Despite his avid insistence, James Potter has been assured—multiple times—that holding two-p.m. practice on Christmas Eve is not, in fact, illegal.
He thinks it should be. By all accounts, it goes against every tenet of social order by which England abides—shops are closed, schools were let out the previous week, and he had to manually turn the lights on in the rink when he arrived at one-thirty because nobody has bloody been here for days. It’s utter lunacy; in fact, in some communities, it’s probably considered sacrilege.
He voices this aloud and receives a less-than-satisfactory response.
“Not sacrilege,” the older man next to him grunts—Coach Moody does a lot of grunting—as they walk from the locker rooms toward the rink, which is freshly cleaned and blissfully devoid of tracks, “you’ll be out by four. That’s eight whole hours before we start celebrating Jesus.”
“But coach—”
“No buts! Now stop mucking about, you’re giving me a headache. I want speed drills on in two minutes or it’s laps until two-thirty.”
James makes a face as Moody trots away, but he says nothing. Other team members begin to file out of the locker room, each one looking more despondent than the last.
“No luck?”
James turns to see Sirius Black, his best friend and goalie, with a grim expression on his face as he tugs his practice jersey down over layer upon layer of padding.
“None,” James grimaces. He motions for the team to start filing onto the ice and is met with a medley of groans and grumbles. “I’m not happy about it, either!” He shouts over the low eruption of noise. “But we’re here anyway—so get moving, you layabouts!”
To follow is what James can only describe as an absolute clusterfuck of a practice. Half the team is woefully hungover, so any drills that require anything sharper than a one-hundred-and-thirty-degree turn are met with a mournful chorus of moans and dry heaves, with one particularly crude incident occurring mid-way through a six-pass shooting drill which involves a left defenseman named Alexander sprinting from the rink to empty the contents of his stomach into a nearby trashcan.
The other half of the team isn’t really any better; while physically more prepared than the hungover lot, James has had at least six separate complaints about the existence of a Christmas Eve practice from an assortment of players who seem not to care about getting on his nerves.
“Do you really think I want to be here?!” He’s demanded in at least five of these six instances. “My mum’s in the middle of making a shepherd’s pie that I’ve been dreaming about since last Christmas—do you think I really want to be stuck here with you smelly gits?”
Truth be told, he can understand why some might think the practice was his idea. James is a completely dedicated player; he lives, breathes, sleeps hockey most days of the year. Since he became captain of the Gryffindor Lions’ Under-18s team this past season, he’s been absolutely ruthless—it’s his last year before advancing to senior play, and he’s looking toward professional recruitment.
But this?
Even he has limits, the likes of which Alastor Moody seems intent upon testing with each passing game. Playoffs aren’t even for another two months—the boys could use a break.
The final whistle sounds like a cry from angels to James’s ears. Looking around, it seems that his team is on the same page; players collapse gratefully onto the ice, sliding this way and that with sticks dropped carelessly around them; even Sirius leans over his goalposts in exhausted relief.
“Alright, you lot!” James bellows with a wave. “Clear off—time to hit the locker rooms!”
“Thank god,” he hears from one end.
“About bloody time,” he hears from another.
James ushers them all out before following along, bumping off excess ice or grit from the bottom of his skates.
To his bemusement, standing outside the rink is Remus Lupin, one of James’s best mates and esteemed manager of the Lions team. He’s utterly invaluable to the team—without him, James is sure someone (Sirius) would forget a piece of gear (all of it) before every game.
“Remus! Wotcher, mate?”
Remus sends him a tired smile in return. Remus is often tired; he tutors outside of school, participates in Speech and Debate, and is in the middle of his Oxbridge application. “Alright, James?”
“Would be better if you’d of agreed to come to mine for Christmas dinner, you bugger.”
Remus rolls his eyes; they’ve been having this argument for days, but he hasn’t budged an inch. “Don't be a twat. You know I’m going home to see my parents.”
“You see them all the time!” James cries, raising his arms in exasperation. “You’re just going to leave me alone with Sirius? He’s going to set something on fire again without—"
A melodious voice interrupts his tirade. “Harassing my favorite manager, Captain?”
He knows who it is immediately, and the corners of his mouth turn up at the sound of her voice. Around him, wolf whistles and hollers ring out in the cavernous rink, the sounds echoing off of the rafters like dissipating bursts of energy. He turns around quickly.
“Alright, Evans?”
Lily Evans is the undisputed darling of the Under-18s Gryffindor Lions team. She’s been a constant presence at the rink since her elite ice dancing program moved from Cokeworth, where resources were scarce and where she’d long surpassed the capacity of the local coaches. She, much like James, has her eyes set on Olympic glory—and even though James barely knows fuck-all about her sport, he doesn’t doubt her abilities for a second.
That could also be, upon further review, because he’s been head over heels in love with her since about the second week of their acquaintance—much to the amusement of his team, and very much to his own chagrin.
Long, crimson red hair and electric green eyes punctuate the features of the seventeen-year-old figure skater, and her mouth forms a beatific little smile as she replies: “Alright, and you?”
“Just finished up—we left the ice in alright condition. Didn’t you just have practice with Minnie last night?”
The first two weeks of Lily’s occupation of Godric’s Hollow Ice Arena were met with a hostile reception at best on his part. Her practice times were beginning to cut into his own, and despite the fact that he vehemently argued that he’d been there first, her coach—Minerva McGonagall, who still absolutely terrifies him—was paying an exorbitant sum for Lily’s use of the space, so he’d just have to bloody deal with it, she supposed.
But deal with it he did not.
James started running practice long, taking inopportune breaks to let the Zamboni work its magic before reentering the ice, only to scuff it up again so poorly that Lily would herself have to wait an extra fifteen minutes just to practice on a workable surface. He began to fill the equipment room with extra gear that really could have been stored in the locker rooms, so she’d have to dig around for her kinesiology tape or the much-coveted foam rollers after her workouts. In what was probably the worst of his escapades—and really, this was terrible—he and Sirius once organized a couples’ free-skate night that started in the last half hour of Lily’s allotted time, claiming with wide eyes that “we’re raising money for charity!” so she couldn’t morally object. He had watched with a giddy sort of satisfaction as she trudged out of the rink, positively fuming.
This all led to a fantastic blowout argument between the two of them in the midst of some defensive drills; Lily skated out, all yoga-pants-and-tight-zip-up, in the middle of a weekend practice, just to scream bloody murder in his face and call him (for the first time in his charmed young life), “a ridiculous, arrogant, bull-headed tosser.”
It was pretty much over for him right then. He was appropriately scolded; and, as he watched her face as she heaved adrenalin-laden breaths between bouts of yelling, half in love with her.
“I work just as hard as you do, Potter!” She snapped. “And I don’t bloody care if you’ve got some weird Freudian attachment to this particular fucking rink, I’m paying to be here too, so you’d better treat—me—with—respect!”
He could do little more than gape. Love at first sight? Hogwash. Love at first screaming match? Irrefutably true.
Since she was obviously right, he conceded the time, more than a little shocked to see the petite girl so fired-up and confrontational, where before he’d thought she might just complain to a higher-up or (and this was the original motive) leave the rink altogether. James apologized right there on the ice, which became the ammunition for his team to hassle him for the subsequent few weeks—their captain, bowing his head and actually looking chastised? Unheard of.
Seeming placated enough, she took his proffered hand and shook it, eyeing him warily until a shout from Sirius interrupted their eye contact.
“A very cute couple you two make!” He hollered with a grin. James contemplated the maximum sentencing for murder for those charged under the age of eighteen.
Not worth it.
He begrudgingly introduced her to the team with a whispered, “ignore them, they all have brain damage,” and told her he’d clear out the equipment room after that day’s practice. She’d nodded politely, tight-lipped, and skated back over to the edge of the rink, where she hopped over the barrier with all the grace and majesty of a ballerina.
For the rest of the drills, all he saw in his head was the way her green eyes shone when she first made her way over to him.
He was, in a word, fucked.
Which brings him back to the present, where his situation remains unchanged: he’s still fucked.
“Just bringing some Christmas cheer to the rink, I reckon,” she shrugs. She’s donned in a green knit sweater over her black leggings, accented with little bursts of blue and red and yellow in the form of multi-colored Christmas lights. Let’s Get Lit! is written in curvy, white letters along her chest. He makes sure only to glance at it for an appropriate amount of time.
“Solo practice today?” He inquires, looking around at the absence of her coach. “Evans, I never took you for a masochist.”
She winks back at him—he feels like melting into a sad, little puddle on the floor. Here lies liquefied James Potter. “What can I say? Guess I must like pain or something.”
Ha, ha, please kill me.
“And don’t we all, exercising on such a holy day!” Sirius saves him with an arm swung around his shoulder and a fond smirk in Lily’s direction. “Or, at least, the very important day before the holy day.”
She grins right back—she and Sirius banter with each other like old mates. “You’re a goalie, Sirius. Do you even move?”
A chorus of ooh’s erupt from the audience of players. It bears repeating that Lily is the darling of the team; and not just for her pretty face—though, in James’s case, it is a significant factor worth mentioning.
Since their fight (fight is a generous word, it was more so a venting session on her behalf for which James was—and is—utterly repentant), he started bringing the team (“yes, Benjy, this is mandatory,”) to her meets at the rink; while skeptical at first, the entire team became quietly besotted with figure skating—with the artistry, the athleticism, the agility on such tiny little skates. They very quickly became her bona fide cheering squad. She was appropriately shocked after she came out of her long program the first time to find thirty-odd boys cheering red-faced for her in the stands, but she recovered with a delighted laugh that made James think that dragging the team out on a Saturday morning may have been the best decision he’d ever made.
“What are you doing here?” She giggled, giving each of them an appreciative hug around her bouquet—which, James remembers smugly, came from her first-place seat and advancement to some sort of Grand Prix. “You guys!”
The boys (bloody traitors) all pointed his way; James could only send a hand flying up to his hair sheepishly in response. “Morale boosting?”
In a moment that he’s sure was designed by God to give him some sort of coronary malfunction, Lily walked over to him and leaned up on her toe picks to give him a hug, her small arm looping around his neck, all sequined fabric and lavender perfume. He made eye contact with Sirius over her shoulder; who, with the rest of the team, was looking at him with a sadistic sort of glee.
“Thank you, James,” she whispered.
“Anything for you, Evans,” he whispered back. He still doesn’t think she knows how much he meant it.
It was then tacitly agreed that, since that one Saturday, Lily would come to their games all covered in Lions merchandise, and they, in turn, became her brothers-turned bodyguards. James is slightly amazed that the lads have the time to occupy so many roles—hockey players, cheerleaders, protection detail from any unwanted boys named Snape—while still managing to tease him mercilessly about his very obvious crush on the redheaded girl.
The problem is that he has absolutely no idea how she feels. She’s nice to him, nowadays, but she’s nice to everyone, and he’s spent more than a few sleepless nights attempting to decipher whether or not there's any sort of differentiating factor between the two nicenesses, if maybe there's some infinitesimal way to distinguish her behavior around him from her behavior around the team.
The team, who are, as of right now, all looking at him with the same sort of expression: gleeful and terrifying.
James clears his throat. “Right, well—” he sends what he hopes is a stern look to his compatriots, “—most of us are about to head out, so Merry Christmas and all that…”
She seems about to reply (and maybe just the tiniest bit crestfallen? Is he projecting? This feels like projecting) when Sirius interrupts. “Um, Prongs,” he says dubiously, “weren’t you staying behind to fix that engine problem with the Zamboni?”
Fuck. He’s right. Mum’s shepherd’s pie will have to wait another half hour.
“Oh, yeah,” he says just a bit dumbly. The rest of the team roll their eyes but clear out rather quickly after this; maintaining the Zamboni is one of those tasks assigned to the captain but that he could easily dole out on someone else, and nobody really wants to be stuck with it. Soon enough, it’s just the two of them—Sirius trots away with a jolly call over his shoulder, “I’m not waiting around for you! I’ll tell mum you’re going to be late like the disappointment you are!”
Once again, he contemplates murder.
Not worth it.
James looks from the door to Lily, who’s standing in front of him, looking just about as cagey and uncomfortable as he feels. He suddenly can’t seem to find enough oxygen in the large space; he makes to turn heel and walk away.
Just as he’s about to wave an awkward hand, I’ll be working on the gigantic ice tractor, see you later, she yelps, “James!”
“Um,” he looks at her, wide-eyed and unused to her frenzied expression, “yes?”
“I just… I got you something.”
Are his eyes bugging out of his head? Is there a way to tell such a thing? “You… you got me something?”
“Yeah. For Christmas, I mean. I got you something.”
This still isn’t computing.
“You got me something… for Christmas.”
“Yes—unless, oh god, I’ve never asked if you even celebrated Christmas, fucking hell—oh, my god! You might be Jewish, or Muslim, or, like, a Buddhist, which is fine—”
You’re so adorable I sort of want to weep, is the first thing that shoots into his mind. Probably not a great way to diffuse tension. Instead:
“No!” He yelps. Somehow, her panic has panicked him, so they’re both standing there; two awkward, panicking teenagers, both leaning up against a wall for support while trying to remain upright in ice skates, one in a Christmas tree sweater and one still in a hockey practice uniform soaked through with sweat, each one having what would appear to any onlooker to be a mild sort of aneurysm. “No, I’m not—I mean, I celebrate Christmas!”
Lily visibly deflates with relief. “You do?”
“Yeah, I do, but—but, Lily, I didn’t get you anything, I feel awful—"
“That’s okay!” She appears to be Normal Lily again, all smiles and elegance and gorgeous green eyes tinged with a look that says, I know something you don’t, and I always will. “That’s fine, I didn’t expect anything, I just…”
From behind her back, Lily pulls out a small, decorated gift bag with bright pink polka dots on a garishly yellow background. She holds it out to him in a way that one might a small explosive device, with just the tips of her fingers pinching the pink braided handles, watching in trepidation as it swings back and forth from the sudden reveal. A pink card dangles from its side with the word JAMES written in her tiny, bouncy handwriting.
“I…” James trails off, unable to conjure more words that might mitigate the blush rapidly assaulting his face. “Lily, I…”
“Just take it, you idiot!” She insists with a smile.
“Alright, alright, pushy…”
He grabs the bag eagerly, hands momentarily devoid of his large gloves, which are tucked in one elbow. There is a layer of tissue paper—he’s never gotten why girls do that, put a bunch of decorations in the bag, instead of just putting the gift in the bag by itself, but he’s not the type of imbecile to question a gift that Lily Evans has bestowed upon him—before a tiny, stuffed lion emerges from within the fray. It’s—
“It’s a cat toy!” Lily bursts from in front of him. “You mentioned the other week you have a cat, and your team is the lions, so I thought…”
She got him a cat toy. She actually went out of her way to purchase a lion-shaped cat toy for him—well, for his sorry excuse for a cat, but the minutia of it are inconsequential at present. He's having a mental breakdown. She got him a cat toy. He's in love with her.
James looks up at her; she’s staring at him with a beaming smile, excited for his excitement, nervous for its absence—she has no idea that she’s essentially stolen his breath. “Lily…”
She mistakes his breathlessness for displeasure; he’ll have to be better about that, because he can’t ever let her think he’s upset with her. Not ever—not her.
“Oh, god,” Lily gasps, her smile beginning to wilt off of her face, replaced suddenly with acute panic, “you don’t like it. I’m so sorry, I just—”
“Lily, I love it.”
It’s like a winter sunrise, when she smiles again; like the reds and golds peeking out from the stark white of snow, from the skeletons of trees whose leaves have yet fallen.
“Really?!”
“I absolutely love it,” he assures her again, his smile growing. He’s hopeless, absolutely hopeless.
Lily takes a moment to preen, and he watches her with a reverence he usually saves for when she’s not directly looking at him. She sees it after a moment; she blushes.
“What?”
“You’re so gorgeous,” he says before he can stop himself, and suddenly there’s an avalanche of words coming from his mouth before he can run and leave this moment in the quiet perfection of her happiness, “you’re just stunning when you’re happy. I can’t not look at you.”
Well. There’s that, he supposes.
Lily’s eyes widen with his every word, and suddenly panic strangles any shoddy explanation he can think of to reel the moment back and shove it out of existence. I think you’re gorgeous as a friend, of course—I mean I can’t stop looking at you in a friendly way!
“James,” she says slowly, and all of a sudden (in a cruel, ironic twist) he can’t look at her, so he looks determinedly at his own skates, “James… did you… do you, I mean—did you mean that?”
That you’re gorgeous? It’s only the thing that keeps me awake at night and staring at my ceiling. “Yeah, Lily, ‘course I did.”
She’s suddenly before him—how did she move that fast, and that quietly, on her skates? Figure skaters are a different breed, he swears—and he has nowhere to look but the emerald luminescence of her irises.
James is very suddenly accosted with all of the reasons why he's never confessed his feelings to her before: she's too good for him, too driven and smart and funny and gorgeous, and sometimes he feels like he's playing one long game of catch-up just to keep level with her brilliance. He's spent too long pining silently (and pitifully, if you ask his team) after her, and if this is how he ruins it, over a bleeding cat toy, he may just stick his head into the Zamboni instead of fixing it—she's going to reject him, and he's going to sulk all the way through Euphemia's shepherd's pie, and Sirius is going to eat all of it without a lick of remorse.
He thinks fleetingly of running away before she can verbally stomp on his heart. Escape plans flicker across his retinas, though each one is admittedly last-ditch and pathetic.
He should know by now that there's no escaping Lily Evans.
“Do you want to do a free-skate with me?” She asks. He's in the middle of working through Crisis Scenario Number Fifteen, which he's embarrassed to admit involves climbing rafters and crawling through air ducts.
Her question takes him aback. “Er, what?”
“Do you,” she steps impossibly closer to him, so she’s almost standing between his legs, and her body heat is somehow scorching, “want to free-skate with me? Just the two of us?”
It’s a bit redundant, because there’s no one else at the rink except Barty the janitor, but the question still fills him with a helium balloon of unabashed hope. Just the two of us?
“Lily Evans,” he says, a thousand realizations dawning on him at the speed of light, each one more earth-shattering than the last, “are you asking me for a couples free-skate? Like, the kind we make fun of, that hold hands and do laps around the rink for hours?”
“I think I might be,” Lily replies. Her eyes are twinkling again; he wants to map out where each speck of emerald morphs into forest green. “Is that okay with you?”
James tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and watches how she shivers.
“It’s all I could ever want, as a matter of fact.”
She might think he’s joking; James will have time to correct her later on. Possibly on whatever day he actually ends up fixing the Zamboni.
Lily sticks out her hand to him, which is covered in a deep purple mitten. “Follow me?” She asks softly. Hope shines like starlight in her green eyes, but her face betrays just the barest hint of nervousness.
I’d follow you anywhere, he wants to say, anywhere, anywhere, anywhere.
Instead, he settles just for taking her hand and letting her guide him back toward the rink. The heat’s been turned off, so his breaths come out as shimmering puffs of air, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he moves. They both shiver lightly.
Once they arrive at the ice, James quickly puts his gloves back on before slipping his hand back into hers, and they push off in a smooth glide; four parallel lines trace behind them, gradually curving inward toward each other, achingly magnetic; like lost lovers.
He’s never felt warmer in his life.