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“Another year of you two bringing home the gold.” The interviewer says, settling herself in her chair and spreading her skirt out around her legs in a passive motion, “How are you feeling?”
James smiles at the woman, “We’re just thrilled about it, I mean we were worried with how ambitious that we were going with our routine and we faced many challenges through it all, but it was so worth it.” They smile at Lily next to them, prompting her to speak and give her own opinion.
Lily nods, keeping her gaze focused on her partner -- the person that she’s been figure skating and competing with since they were thirteen -- instead of the cameras or the interviewer. She finally turns to the woman that asked the question, “Yeah, it’s just… I was worried since I stumbled on some of my moves, but the relief of winning is great. And it’s nice to have this win since…” she flicks her gaze to James and focuses on them again. The two of them have a silent conversation and James reaches out to grab at her hand before she nods, “since I’m retiring.”
There’s a silence that fills the room, and their coach sighs off camera. The interviewer takes a couple seconds to gather her thoughts before she stutters out, “You’re retiring? At such a young age?”
Lily nods, not looking away from James, “Yeah, I know that I’m young. But we’ve been competing for years, since we were kids. And… I’ve been incredibly successful and I’m so grateful for our coach and our friends and everyone that we’ve had along the way to support us, but-” she takes a deep breath and finally turns to the camera, “But I have a family now, my partner and I just had a daughter and I want to be in her life. I don’t want to risk anything or be running around the world to compete and leave my partner and daughter all alone. I’m making this decision for my family.”
“So you’re done with figure skating forever?”
The woman shakes her head, “No, figure skating will always be my love. I hope to continue skating until I’m not physically able to. I want to keep working with James and I’ll still help them practice and choreograph, and I’ll still be adding videos and pictures of me skating to my social media. I’m just stepping down from competing.” She hums after a couple seconds, “It’s possible that one day, far in the future, I’ll come back to competing or join James in some small competitions, but that’s it. I need to do this for my family.”
The interviewer nods, “That’s understandable and respectable, and I wish you and your new family nothing but the best.” She smiles softly when Lily lets go of James’ hand in favour of reaching for her ring. Then she turns to James, “I assume you knew this?”
James nods, “This has been something we’ve talked about since the baby was on the way.”
“And how do you feel about it?”
“I completely support it.” They smile softly at the woman next to them, squeezing her arm, “Lily has wanted children and a family for a long time, and she has it now. Everyone knows that my parents met through figure skating and retired when they had me so they could be a part of my life, so I’m fully there for it.”
“But you’re going to be losing your partner,” the interviewer notes, probing but not in any condescending way.
They nod, turning back to the interviewer, “It’s going to be hard not skating with Lily anymore, and it’s going to take me a long time to get used to it. But I’ve also worked with other people throughout my time skating and I intend to find another partner for the next competition.” They smile, “I’ve already talked to several people and thought about doing some warm up skates with them. No one will ever feel like Lily, because we grew up together and we learned together. But I do think that this will bring some wonderful new changes to my life.”
“That’s a good way of looking at it.”
“I’m a big fan of accepting change for the opportunity of growth that it is.” They hum before the interviewer continues on with a different line of questioning.
…
“So James,” the interview asks, leaning a little too close for comfort to James -- they’ve never liked this guy, but unfortunately he’s a well-known and liked, for some reason, interviewer so he happens to be everywhere, “How have you been holding up since Lily abandoned you?”
They take a deep breath. They had at least hoped that he would wait until they were a couple more questions in before throwing the accusatory and gross comments at them -- the amount of misogyny that James has heard throughout their years of working with Lily, amplified now that she’s retired, is insane -- but here they are. The second question. It’s hard to plaster a half-decent looking smile on their face, but they manage, “Lily didn’t abandon me, in fact I encouraged her to retire because I knew how much it meant to her.”
Off screen, James registers their coach nodding in the corner of their eye. They breathe again and push on, “I’ve been doing well, and I’ve officially found another partner for this next competition.”
“Oh? Tell me about her?”
They take a moment to look at their coach and their manager, waiting until the both of them give them the nod before they focus back on the interview. They straighten their back and make direct eye contact with the man, “He is a well known skater that I’ve admired for a long time. He doesn’t normally do duo comps, but I’ve been more than lucky that he agreed to make an appearance with me.”
The man stares at him for a while, unsure of what to say before he finally seems to regain his composure, “Are you implying that you’re partnering with a man?”
James nods, “Yeah, we intend to break a lot of norms and bounds with this performance that we’re doing, starting with it being two masculine-presenting people in a duo skate together.”
“And you’re comfortable with that?”
“I don’t see why it should be any different than competing with a woman?” They challenge, keeping a pleasant and complacent expression.
The man flounders for a moment, “I mean, you’re going to be intimate with a man during this skate.”
“I’m under the belief that ice skating doesn’t have to be romantic to be effectively and emotionally intimate and moving. I think good storytelling can be done with anyone who has good chemistry.” They push, “No one seemed to have an issue when I was doing duo competitions with my friend, someone who I am not dating and has a partner that she’s married to.” They show off their left hand, pushing that they’re not wearing a ring unlike the one that Lily has worn in every interview since Pandora proposed, “Why should it be different with a man? If I’m comfortable with him, then I’m comfortable with him. If he’s comfortable with me, then he’s comfortable with me. Putting a general expectation that you have to be romantically involved with the person you duo with is just unfounded, and that’s what you’re doing by expecting me to be scared of duoing with a male partner.”
“You can’t do traditional throws with another man.” The interview scrambles after a couple seconds.
James hums tilting their head just a bit, “Like I said before, we’re going to be doing a performance that breaks the conventional bounds and standards that are upheld in figure skating. There is pressure to be a woman-man competing duo, there is pressure to do throws and have movements accentuated by skirts and the heteronormative intimacy that we’re used to. I can’t say much, but there are many ways that we’re breaking our normal bonds, and that includes our technique and the moves that we’ll use. This isn’t about tradition.” They give him a terse smile, “Is there anything else that you wanted to ask me?” The man scrambles and flips through some of the cards that he has questions and talking points written on before settling on one. He doesn’t bring it up again, and the internet is clipping those moments for months afterwards.
…
“So when are you going to let me meet this new partner of yours?” Lily asks, handing them their glass of wine as she settles on the couch opposite them.
James smiles and shakes their head, “In due time. He and I have just been working with coach to figure out the logistics of our program before we let anyone see us work together.”
“Oh come on, James!” Lily sighs, “I’ve been your partner since we were children, I’ve seen you break bones and bust your ass. I shouldn’t know only as much as the internet knows because you don’t want me to see your program before it’s ‘perfect’.”
James shakes their head, “It’s not that. I would bring you to my next practice without a question if I could. But this is his first real partner skate, and he’s nervous about it. He wants it to be better before I bring anyone around to see it other than coach, let alone the person that I’ve been partnered with for my entire life.” They shake their head, “He’s an incredible skater and he does everything perfectly, but I have to admit that he’s a little insecure when it comes to his work, probably from his shitty coaches that he’s had before, and he thinks that you’ll mock him for not getting something perfect.”
“He’s never met me then,” She shakes her head, seemingly taking that information into account. She’s been trying to worm the information out of James for months now, randomly throwing out the name of a popular and talented male skater in the middle of nearly every conversation that they have alone.
“You’ve never met, that’s for sure.” They shake their head, “I know that you’ll like him, he’s just nervous about it.”
“And you’ve always been stupidly respectful.” She shakes her head back, throwing it against the back of the couch moments later, “Fine, keep your secrets then.”
“You’ll meet him eventually.”
And that ‘eventually’ comes in the form of two weeks, when James is texting her and telling her that they need her help with their practice. So Lily is gearing up and grabbing her always-packed duffle bag of her skating things and heading out to their usual rink.
No one’s in there when she gets there, obviously. There are only four other cars parked outside the building, and the worker lets her in when they recognise her. All three of the people she’s here for are on the ice when she gets in, and they turn to her when the door slams as loud as it always does -- which is too loud, it always makes James wince. James waves to her and starts to skate towards where she settles to change her shoes for skates.
“Hey Lils,” they smile. The woman looks up briefly while pulling her shoe off, noting that the coach and James’ partner, that she still can’t see super well, are making their way to her as well.
“James,” she smiles back, looking back to what she was doing, “Why did you need me?”
James hums, “We’re trying to do a lift but Reg isn’t sure of the logistics on how we should do it, so I was hoping that you’d come to workshop it with us and show him out to safely enter certain lifts?” Lily nods before the word ‘Reg’ catches her attention. She snaps her head up, seeing that Coach McGonagall and James’ new partner -- fucking Regulus Black -- are standing near them.
“Regulus Black is your fucking partner, James?” She shouts, haphazardly bringing her leggings down over her laces and standing up, “And you just wouldn’t tell me who your partner is? What the fuck?”
James gives her an amused smile, shaking their head, “I knew that you’d react like this either way. Yeah, you know how Minnie’s been working with Sirius for a while? Well, Regulus recently switched to working with her as well and she wanted to push him to do something out of his norm. It just so happened that my skating partner had just retired and I needed someone on or close to my level to skate with.”
“James Fleamont Potter,” Lily gasps, “How dare you replace me with a literal god of skating, I’m never going to be able to do a partner skate with you again.” She shakes her head, only half joking, before turning to Regulus and outstretching a hand, “Lily Evans, James’ previous partner, nice to meet you.”
“Regulus, though you seem to know that,” he hums, smirking at her, “I can’t say my presence has ever garnered such a reaction.”
Lily rolls her eyes, “Have you met yourself, I sincerely doubt that’s true.”
“Perhaps.”
“As nice as this is,” McGonagall speaks up, “we only have the rink for so long and I’d like to get this part choreographed as soon as possible. Lily, are you ready to go out on the ice?”
Lily takes a moment to check over herself and throws her hair into a quick bun before she’s nodding and the four are going back out to the ice, “What lift are you guys needing help with?”
James hums, “We’re going from a double illusion spin into a curved lasso lift. We’ll move him to sit on my shoulder after that.”
“Then what?”
“We haven’t figured that out yet.” They shake their head, “We want to focus on getting this and the transition to and between each move fleshed out.” Lily nods and the four of them get to work, with Lily and James figuring out the logistics of the moves they’re wanting together then Lily and McGonagall helping Regulus and James through getting it together.
They continue through with more of the choreography, Lily helping where needed and when asked with brainstorming and logistics. And by the end of their allotted time, they have most of the program in its most basic form of fleshed out.
Lily gets invited to more practices after that, helping the partners with their program and getting to know Regulus more. Remus and Sirius get invited to a couple practices as well. Soon enough, the duo is ready for their competition and Poppy, their manager, is giving Regulus and James their outfits and tickets to fly out.
…
James and Regulus manage to avoid the press and Poppy doesn’t schedule any interviews for them before the competition, wanting to leave complete anonymity. But soon enough, James and Regulus have changed into their outfits -- sleek black things, adorned by green and silver embellishments and mesh sleeves, and where James wears a vest, Regulus’ back dips low until just under his mid-back with black straps going across the top -- and are waiting by the entrance to the rink for them to be announced.
McGonagall gives them an encouraging nod and James reaches for Regulus’ hand, the man taking it easily, while they wait through the announcement. Then their names are being said and they’re entering the ice, hands falling apart as they both put on a little show to get to the center of the rink, unable to hear anything other than the smooth sound of their skates on the ice and the thunderous cheers of the crowd.
Please welcome James Potter and Regulus Black for El Tango De Roxanne
They get to the center of the rink and take their final deep breath as the music begins to play and they’re off. The first part is easy, them moving in near perfect -- if not perfect -- sync with their moves during the Spanish part before they meet up in the center as the violin starts to well and they begin a pancake spin holding each other's legs before making their way back to a stand, entering their illusion spin.
It’s a surprise to see these two working together, they’re typically in different areas of skating.
But Regulus practically flies through the air so I’m not shocked by this at all.
No and James does wonderful working with other people.
After a couple seconds of their illusion spin, finally moving to their lift that Lily worked with them when the lyrics pick up again. Regulus comes from the shoulder sit by flipping forward and being caught around the waist and knee, bringing them to spin around for a moment until James lowers Regulus back down onto the ice.
Once Regulus is solidly on both of his feet, they skate for a bit, before James moves so they’re in the right position. Regulus wraps his hands around James’ waist and they both take a deep breath before Regulus is picking up James and they’re spinning through the air, landing only moments later and the two are meeting up to go into a triple axel.
Now that’s just something I’ve never seen before, and James nailed that landing.
They weren’t lying when they said that they were going to be breaking bounds.
After they land, they split and Regulus heads into the middle of the rink to do a death drop into a Biellmann spin while James moves into a hydroblade in a large circle around him, slowly enclosing on their space while the song comes to a close. And just before the song ends, the two finish their moves and glide to each other in the center, spinning around each other, James’ hands on Regulus’ face and Regulus’ on their waist. They press their foreheads together and come to a slow stop.
It’s only then that James allows themself to focus on anything other than their partner and their own movements. The two of them split and take their quick exit, heading to the edge of the rink where Sirius, Remus, Lily, Pandora, and their daughter in Pandora’s arms are waiting for them. James immediately falls into their ex-partner’s arms while Regulus moves to be pulled into a reluctant hug from his brother. James pulls away from Lily and leans down to press a kiss to Pandora’s cheek, then running a gentle hand over the little girl’s head.
Regulus and James finish with their friends and McGonagall leads them to the waiting area while their friends go back to their own seats.
Once they’re sat in their spot, Regulus and James grab hands where the camera can’t see it, their knees blocking the sight, “Are you ready for this?”
“You better have brought me to gold, Potter.” Regulus hums, grinning at them, “Otherwise I’m never doing a duo with you again.”
“You better have brought me to gold, Arcturus,” James responds, “Otherwise you’re not getting a solo freeskate out of me.” McGonagall rolls her eyes just past where the camera is sitting, though she’s smiling at them.
The final results begin to show on the screen, revealing that James and Regulus won gold. Immediately, James is pulling their partner into a big hug and they’re going out to the ice to receive their trophies and get their pictures taken.
…
“You two did phenomenally.” The interviewer, the same one that talked to James and Lily the day that Lily announced her retirement, cheers once they’re all settled and the cameras are rolling.
James smiles at her, “Thank you.”
“Of course, now, as I’m sure you can expect, I have some questions.” She looks down at her notes, “Now, I would love to know how this duo happened.”
Regulus hums, “I’ve been clear about my changing of coaches to Minerva McGonagall, which is who my brother’s been working with for several years, and she was wanting me to change. She wanted to challenge me and suggested that I work with James. I think it worked out well.”
“Oh I’m inclined to agree, James said that you two would be breaking bounds and expectations and I think you did just that. Regulus throwing James, the lifts, the ending, the music, you both did very well with breaking what’s normal.” She hums, looking back on her notes, and humming, “Is there any possibility that you two will continue working together like this?”
James shrugs, “There’s a possibility, but Regulus prefers doing solo freestyle. I have other people that I’m willing to duo with, this was just for fun, though we’ll probably end up doing this program again.”
Regulus nods, “And I’m in the process of trying to convince James to do a solo program or two, but they’re not budging right now.” He winks at the camera, James rolls their eyes.
The interview continues on for a while before James and Regulus are being ushered to their next one.
Unfortunately this interview is the same man that always gets invasive with James. They groan as they approach the seats, and they can see Regulus nodding in the corner of their eye. Either way, McGonagall and Poppy move to sit just off camera and James and Regulus settle in their chairs.
They wait for a while for everything to be set up before the interview starts. And that’s when the man starts off with his bullshit, “That was quite the performance that you two managed to put on.”
James gives him a terse smile, they both know that they don’t like him, “Thank you, we were proud to perform it for the world to see.”
The man nods, “And you two are…”
There’s silence for a moment before Regulus rolls his hands and nods, “We’re… what? We, unfortunately, can’t read your mind.”
“What is your relationship status?” The man pushes, “Dating?”
James has to close their eyes and take a deep breath to make sure that their response is rational, “I’ve stated before that doing a partner skate with someone doesn’t mean that there is a romantic relationship involved. Many skate duos aren’t dating, including Lily and I. Regulus and I skating together doesn’t mean that there is a romantic relationship between us.”
“But you knew each other prior to the skate, I can only imagine that’s why you were so comfortable being so… touchy with another man.”
“I’m not a man,” James corrects gently, shaking their head, then they clear their throat, “Yes, we knew each other before we were partnered, however there’s a lot more to performing with someone than just comfort.”
“And how did you two know each other?”
This time it’s Regulus to answer, “My brother is James’ best friend, and they’ve been friends for a long time. We operate under the same manager. We’ve crossed paths many times since James and Sirius started skating.”
“But that’s all there is between you two?”
James suddenly stands up, clearing their throat. They put on a tense smile that they know doesn’t reach their eyes, extending their hand, “Respectfully, I think that’s all the time that Regulus and I have for further questions about our performance for the day. Thank you for your time.” And with that, they stand and walk away from the interview area. Their partner and team follow behind them.
James finds themself back in their and Regulus’ changing room, settling on the bench, closing their eyes, and taking a few deep breaths. They know that McGonagall and Poppy are going to be upset with them, but they’re sick of dealing with that damn interviewer and his weird need to press into James’ personal life and relationships.
Warmth against their side gets them to open their eyes. Regulus is sitting next to them, just barely leaning on them. He reaches out a hand, resting it on his own knee, “Are you okay?”
After a couple seconds of staring at the pale skin, James intertwines their fingers with his. They take a deep breath, “Yeah, I just- that interviewer always gets on my nerves and I’m sick of him spending our entire interviews obsessing with my romantic life.”
McGonagall hums from where she’s standing near the door to the changing rooms, her hand in Poppy’s, “While I don’t appreciate the way that you ended the entire thing, I understand.”
Poppy nods, “I’ll see what I can do about keeping him and you separate. He gets on the nerves of a lot of people, I wonder sometimes why he’s continuously brought on to do interviews and why he’s so liked.”
Regulus shakes his head, “It’s because he gets the drama. There are a lot of gluttonous fans that want nothing more than romance tea and he gets that for them. That’s enough to get him places.”
“It’s ridiculous.” James shakes their head.
Regulus smiles softly at them, “Isn’t it?” McGonagall and Poppy silently leave the room, leaving just the two of them to their privacy, “Do you ever intend to tell anyone about us?”
James hums, “I have no issue with telling people about us, though maybe not for a while after that interview drops. People will just use our coming out and my reactions in that interview negatively.”
“Have you even told Lily and Pandora yet?”
“Have you even told Sirius yet?” James shoots back, raising an eyebrow. Regulus rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
“I suppose you’ve got me there.” The two of them sit there for a while before Regulus stands up, brushing off his legs. He reaches out to his partner, “Are you ready to face the music?”
James takes a couple more deep breaths and takes his hand. They get pulled to a stand and the two of them gather their things and get ready to head to the car that’ll take them to the hotel.