Disclaimer: I do not own these characters; they are all J.K. Rowling's. Only the idea is mine. The song is not mine either. It is from the movie "Moulin Rouge" and belongs to 20th Century Fox.
Lily Evans sat down next to her boyfriend, James Potter, at breakfast and kissed him on the cheek. "Good morning, my love."
"Good morning, Lils. How are you doing this morning," James asked kissing her softly on the lips.
"I'm just fine. Thank you for asking. How are you doing?"
"I'm amazing, now that you're here."
"Well, good morning to you too, Lily!" Sirius Black said loudly from the other side of James, clearly offended at being ignored.
Lily laughed. "Good morning, Sirius. How are you?"
Sirius smiled contentedly. "I'm wonderful, thanks."
Remus Lupin walked up to the table, and sat down next to Lily, holding a copy of The Daily Prophet. He looked grim.
"What's wrong?" Lily asked.
"Voldemort and his followers killed again," Remus said laying the newspaper out on the table. "But this time it was muggles."
Lily gasped, and James put his arm around her.
"That's disgusting," Sirius said, bitterly. "Voldemort and his crew make me sick, especially with this whole anti-Muggle crap, and the prejudice against Muggle-borns."
"That's not the worst," Remus said, darkly. "Even in this school there is bigotry. Just this morning, a group of seventh year Slytherins was harassing a first year Gryffindor, calling her a Mudblood, hexing her and what not."
Lily looked as if she were about to cry. "That's awful."
"I know, but before I got there to help her, she hit them all with an especially strong Bat-Bogey Hex." Remus laughed. "Sure showed them."
James shook his head. "So many people have been killed. You hear of at least one murder a day. Even pure-bloods. Miranda O'Brian, one of the chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, her parents were killed for resisting Voldemort."
"That means no one's safe. I wish there was some way to escape all this, even for just a little while," Sirius said blankly staring at the Ravenclaw table, where there was a group of crying girls.
Lily's eyes brightened. "I've just had a thought. James come with me," Lily said taking James by the hand and dragging him out of the great hall.
"Let me get this straight," Dumbledore said, staring at the Head Boy and Girl. "You want to put on some sort of performance?"
"Yes," Lily said quickly. "A bunch of small performances, like maybe some small scenes out of Muggle plays or movies. It would be sort of like a 'Muggle Appreciation' thing, but it would also just be a time to relax and laugh a bit."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I think it is a brilliant idea."
Lily smiled. "Thank you, Professor. So, I have your permission to put a sign up sheet in the Great Hall bulletin board?"
"Yes, you do, Miss Evans."
"Thank you so much!" Lily grabbed James hand. "Come on let's go!"
As Lily started to walk away, James smiled at the Headmaster. "I'm just along for the ride," he managed to get out before being dragged out of the office by Lily.
As soon as the bulletin went up, people were asking Lily all sorts of questions, so she decided just to hold a meeting where she could explain everything to all of them at once. The meeting has held in the empty Transfiguration class room, and it was extremely full of people.
"Wow, there a lot more people than I thought," Lily said to James.
"It's fine. If you have any problems holding their attention, I have my wand at the ready."
Lily laughed at this, and stood up in front of everyone. "Thank you all for coming tonight," Lily said over the talking group, and everyone became silent. "As you all know, we are having a performance. It will be series of short performances, performed by any who would like to participate. It is a Muggle Appreciation performance, so we will be performing scenes from Muggle plays or movies, or Muggle songs."
Someone's hand shot up. "Yes?" Lily asked.
"How are we supposed to perform these things, if we don't know any of them?"
James jumped in here. "Excellent question. We have copies of scenes from plays by Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and other famous playwrights. We also have song sheets of some popular Muggle songs. If there's nothing here you like, talk to either me, James Potter, or Lily Evans, my beautiful assistant."
"Who the heck is Shake-a-pear?" a voice called out.
Lily giggled. "Shakespeare was a great author of many plays. He wrote and 'Much Ado About Nothing.'"
"Is there anymore questions?" James asked. "Well I guess that was one." James laughed at his own joke, and there was a faint courtesy laugh, and a groan from Remus, Sirius and Lily.
"Well, if there are no more questions, you all can go. To get a copy of a song or scene, or if you have any questions, please see me or James. All performances must be approved by the ninth. Well, good night."
Preparations were going great. Countless people signed up, and they all had their performances approved. There were monologues, solos, duets, trios, and scenes from plays with five or six people in them.
"This is amazing!" Lily exclaimed the night before the performance. "Everything is going according to plan! The Great Hall looks amazing, the stage couldn't look better, and the performances are outstanding! I cannot believe this is actually going to work."
"Of course it's going to work," James told her. "It was your idea and you have awesome ideas, and they always work."
Lily giggled. "You flatter me, James Potter."
They exchanged a quick kiss and set off to bed.
The next morning the school was in a buzz. Teachers gave up on teaching because even they got excited when tonight's event was mentioned. Finally, the time came for the performances to begin. All of the acts went terrific. There were no major mistakes, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Now it came time for the last performance: The Head Boy and Girl's performance.
The curtains opened, to reveal the stage. At the back of the stage there were a set of slightly curved stairs that led up to a sort of balcony. The spotlight shone brightly on Lily, wearing a fancy red dress, with her blazing red curly hair falling onto her shoulders, and James, wearing a nice tux, with his hair somewhat tamed.
"I can't fall in love with anyone," Lily was saying.
James acted bewildered. "Can't fall in love? A life without love, that's terrible."
"No, being on the streets, that's terrible," Lily snapped back.
"No, love is like oxygen. Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love," James tried to explain.
"Please, don't start that again," Lily reprimanded, exasperated at him.
"All you need is love," James sang, moving closer to her.
"A girl has got to eat," Lily replied matter-of-factly, poking him in the shoulder.
"All you need is love," James sang again.
"She'll end up on the street," Lily stated, pointing a finger in his face.
"All you need is looo—oove!" James declared, singing once more.
"Love is just a game," Lily sang quietly, turning and walking away from him.
James quickly cut her off, now that James was in front of her, she started walking backward the other way. A sort of jazz music began to play. As he walked toward her, she kept stepping backward, they're steps were in perfect congruity, and looked almost like a dance. "I was made for loving you baby, you were made for loving me," he sang with his deep voice.
Lily continued with the jazzy song, with her hand on his chest, she began to walk toward him, causing him to walk backward, with the same unity. "The only way of loving me baby, is to pay a lovely fee," she sang, turning away with a 'not-so-innocent' hair flip.
The music turned somewhat classical. "Just one night, just one night," James sang as if pleading to her.
"There's no way, 'cause you can't pay," Lily sang, shaking her head.
James grabbed her wrist and pulled her up the stairs to the balcony and looked her straight in the eye, holding both of her wrists. "In the name love, one night in the name of love."
Lily wrenched her wrists free of his grasp. "You crazy fool, I won't give into you," she sang turning to leave.
"Don't," he spoke, she stopped and turned toward him slightly. "…leave me this way. I can't survive, without your sweet love. Oh baby, don't leave me this way," he serenaded.
The music turned very soft. "You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs," Lily sang, in almost a whisper.
"I look around me, and I see it isn't so," James paused and chuckled lightly. "No."
"Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs," Lily sang softly.
"Well, what's wrong with that? I'd like know, 'cause here I go again!" The music gradually became bolder. James turned to the audience and stood on the railing of the balcony. "Love lifts us up where we belong. ("Get down! Ooooh, please get down," came Lily, worried.) "Where eagles fly on a mountain high." James jumped back down to the balcony.
Glad that he was safe, but still exasperated, Lily sang, "Love makes us act like we are fools." She started down the stairs again. "Throw our lives away, for one happy day."
"We could be heroes," James sang from the top step down to her, the music changing once more. He walked down the steps toward her. "Just for one day."
She turned, and pointed a finger at him. "You, you will be mean," she sang and started to walk away from him.
"No, I won't," he said, laughing slightly, following her all the way back down to the stage.
She huffed. "Uh, and I... I... I'll drink all the time," she sang making up excuses.
James dropped to his knees in front of her, and spread his arms out. "We should be lovers," he sang at the top of his lungs.
"We can't do that," Lily sang quietly, backing away.
"We should be lovers. And that's a fact," James sang rising to his feet, now face to face with Lily.
"Though nothing will keep us together," Lily sang.
"We could steal time, just for one day," James sang, pulling Lily toward him.
Looking passionately into each other's eyes they sang together, "We could be heroes, forever and ever. We could be heroes forever and ever. We could be heroes."
"Just because I will always love you," James sang deeply to Lily, never breaking eye contact.
"I..." Lily held out this note, letting her amazing soprano voice soar. Then James joined her, their voices in perfect harmony, "...can't help loving you."
Lily leaned in closer to James and sang, "How wonderful life is..." They stepped even closer to each other, James arms around the small of her back, and Lily's arms around his neck, and they both sang together, "...Now you're in the world."
With that, they were locked in a passionate kiss, and the curtain began to close. The audience stood and broke into a deafening applause. Many of the girls were wiping tears from their eyes, most of the boys were whistling. And for a few precious moments, no one had a care in the world all because of the magic of music and the power of love.
A/N: Did you like it? How could I improve my writing? Please Review.