Hellooo! I want to thank you for all your continued reading, and give a special hell yes to my reviewers ^.^ That's 662 times you guys have made me squeal with delight when checking my email. You'd think the pure unadulterated joy would dull… but alas, it does not! Cheers!
Also confession: I have no clue how to write about singing (nor do it). Not in my wheelhouse I guess (that and writing dancing)! So if you want to know just how many goosebumps you should be getting because Lily is just that good, please YouTube "Never Enough" from The Greatest Showman. (The actress miming it is even a redhead and James' reaction should be like Hugh Jackman's… well, maybe less surprised!)
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. Art work by the awesome Meg (tumblr: anxiouspineapples)
The Show
November, 7th Year
"What is with you and stripping?" Lily lamented.
"Hey, that was one time."
"Yeah, one time too many!"
"Evans. Just because you didn't want to see it, didn't mean that the vast majority of the female, well, and a good chunk of the male population of Hogwarts didn't. I was just giving the people what they wanted."
"Motherfucker Sirius Black—"
"Close enough."
"So you hired them?" Lily motioned to the brunette and blonde exotic dancers who had just walked into Frank's safe house. Don't even get me started on the security threat of telling two strangers about this location…
When Frank had asked Lily to plan his bachelor party, there really hadn't been too many options for what to do considering he wasn't supposed to leave the house. You know, because of the whole stupid Voldemort thing. So, she'd settled for contacting his friends from school and work, and coordinating with Alice's best woman to make some fun alcohol-fused 'newlywed games' and a scavenger hunt inside their home. Strippers were very much not part of the plan for the evening.
"Lil, Lils, Lily-cakes," Sirius slurred. Oh no, so he's already halfway to wasted. "It's a stag party." He smirked to himself for far too long, clearly getting lost in an inside joke that Lily was afraid she actually understood. "Of course I hired the strippers."
Lily grumbled under her breath, "I knew getting your help planning this party was a mistake."
Sirius put both his hands on Lily's shoulders. "And I knew my rough, terrible upbringing meant I was perfect for the combination of party-throwing and knowing all about secret-repressed-Pureblood-fantasies. I would have hired Muggle strippers to be the cherry on top if I trusted people here to be subtle about their magic. Look!" he said pointing behind her, "Look at just how much fun he's having."
Reluctantly, Lily turned to see Frank being flirted with by the two scantily clad witches. "I don't think that's fun on his face as much as fear."
"Same thing." Sirius waved his hand casually. Lily decided, quite quickly, that she was not going to unpack that statement. "Don't worry, we're all having a good time. And Alice is somewhere in this house isn't she?" Lily remained unconvinced. "They're just doing their jobs, Lily. Everyone's happy, and that's all that matters, right?" He booped her nose. Lily decided she definitely needed to have more alcohol. "Stop stressing. Live a little!" he called out as he sauntered over to enjoy the show.
Lily grabbed the nearest bottle of booze, conveniently perched on Frank's kitchen counter, taking a long swig.
"All right, Evans?" her boyfriend's sexy voice tickled her ear from behind. She leaned back, feeling her body completely relax as two strong arms snaked around her waist, pulling her into his chest.
"Your best mate is a right git."
"Okay. So same as usual?"
Lily smiled, turning her head to kiss the underside of his jaw. "Yep."
"What's wrong?" His grip tightened. "This party looks like a roaring success. Sounds to me like you've done your best woman duties."
"You don't think the strippers are a bit much?" Lily whined.
"I mean…" Lily could tell James was choosing his next words very carefully. "They're just birds taking their clothes off. Frank doesn't have to watch if he doesn't want to." There was a deafening cheer, making Lily think that someone's top had definitely just been removed.
"Okay, but isn't that the problem? It's degrading!" Lily chanced a peek; it turned out the cheer had been for a male stripper arriving on the scene. Well, at least Sirius is an equal opportunity employer.
Lily felt James shrug against her. "It's just a job."
"That's what Pads said!"
James chuckled. "Well, it's true. I mean, I haven't asked them personally, but it doesn't look like they hate doing it." He kissed the back of her head. "Which is more than we can say about most jobs."
Lily tilted her head back against his shoulder pondering this as she watched them perform. She guessed that was true. Whenever she'd go to stores, she'd see workers who hated their lives and very rarely was she ever given food by a happy server (house-elves being the very clear exception). Yet here these dancers were, putting on a show, all big smiles and exaggerated moves. Were they acting? Probably, but she'd never dream of asking a bank teller if they were satisfied with their job… was she only uncomfortable with it because it was sex work?
"If you're worried about their safety," James whispered in her ear, seemingly reading her mind, "look at their thighs. They always carry their wands on them," he motioned to Frank's inebriated buddies, "so they could lay us all out flat if they wanted to. Besides," his voice took on that mischievous tone that made heat start pooling between her legs, "we gotta be supportive. I'm pretty sure if being an Auror doesn't work out, this will be Padfoot's career choice."
Lily decided it was a fight she was willing to let go. She didn't have to like it, but she figured that's why she wasn't a stripper herself. Besides, when she saw Frank blush as two of the dancers gave him a very chaste peck on each cheek for a photo, she figured it was all worth it.
Alice came down from upstairs wearing a feather boa a few minutes later, her baby bump only just starting to show, and bought the first lap dance. This prompted Frank to dreamily declare, "I love my wife."
That Night, September, 7th Year
"Ugh. Wearing school uniforms has completely obliterated my fashion sense!" Mary complained in front of a pile of what looked like her entire wardrobe. Lily was helping her pick out her outfit for her date with Sirius that was scheduled right after his Quidditch practice.
It had been so fun to see James excited all day to captain for the first time that year, practically bubbling over with giddiness. 'This is the year, Lils, I can feel it in my bones!' he'd told her on repeat. They hadn't ended up winning the Cup last year (despite having the best team) due to the sabotage of losing Dorcas for a game. Lily hadn't seen Slytherin win it all — in no place mentally to be in an ear-splitting and overcrowded arena — but she'd definitely heard about it. She knew how devastating it had been for James, and she couldn't wait for him to win this season — and to get to see it.
Lily sighed as she made herself comfortable on Marlene's bed, just next to the disaster zone. (James had dragged his cousin to watch practice insisting it would cheer her up because: 'It's Quidditch. Who can be depressed watching Quidditch?') She had the feeling this was going to take a while. "Mare, you were home-schooled for nearly two years! You should have the strongest fashion sense out of all of us."
"Emphasis on home, Lily. I wore joggers and three day old teeshirts most days. That is if I changed out of my pajamas at all."
"Oh." Yeah, that made sense.
Mary groaned. "Well, did you get out of James what Sirius has planned? That might help me narrow down my choices."
Lily reddened. When Mary had asked Lily to subtly ask James if he knew what was happening on the date — you know, in a thoroughly casual way that would draw absolutely no attention to the matter — Lily had thought it would be easy. However, all it had taken was her sitting next to James in Transfiguration for him to raise his eyebrows at her. "What are you up to?" he'd asked.
Lily sputtered. "What do you mean?"
"Babe," he drew a vague circle in front of her eyes, "you got that look you do when you're about to do something naughty."
Lily sat frozen with her mouth hanging open. "I don't have a—"
"Oh yes you do," James responded knowingly. "I saw it in the bar before you broke wizarding law on purpose for the first time, I saw it that time in 3rd year when you oh-so-inconspicuously gave me a cup of pumpkin juice you'd just poisoned because you were mad at me—"
"It wasn't poisoned—"
"—and I still drank it because I was curious what your idea of a prank would be."
"You didn't actually know I'd done something to it! Don't lie."
James rolled his eyes. "Of course I did. You had that very same look you were giving me just now." He leaned in to her ear. "And trust me, I'm far more familiar with it now given how much you like to take my pants off."
Lily hadn't been able to snoop subtly after that. "No, sorry. James' lips were sealed," Lily fudged a little bit.
"Shit," Mary said, looking back at her options. "What about a leather skirt?"
"Yeah." Lily nodded. "I think Sirius likes leather. Reminds him of his motorbike."
Mary turned to Lily with a raised brow. "His what now?"
Lily sighed; obviously this would intrigue Mary. She was probably picturing just how much it would make her mother flip to know her daughter was even considering riding on the back of one. "He has a motorcycle. Don't be too impressed, I'm pretty sure he got it to pick up Muggle chicks two summers ago. Didn't know how to get them home otherwise."
"Well, sounds like that won't be a problem here."
"Mary!"
"Lily!" she mimed. "Quit clutching your pearls. You probably have more sex than all the girls in this dorm combined." Lily tried not to smile. Maybe. We're definitely working up to it. "So about this motorbike…"
"It flies."
"What?!"
"Yep. James wrote to me while they were tinkering with it this summer."
"Ha!" Mary exclaimed. "You have to ride on a vag-destroying broomstick with James and I'm gonna get my very own swanky sidecar."
"Okay. How 'bout you save the bragging until after the date there, trollop." Lily teased, throwing a pillow at her.
"Why? I'm fucking fabulous. He'll loooove me," Mary said, slipping on her skirt.
Lily had to agree with that one. "Oo! Wear that graphic tee! He likes music."
Mary tossed her head back groaning. "I ask you for advice, and the gem I get is that he likes music?"
Lily wished that she had that pillow back. "Listen here, you brat: he's into music, you know, like in a snooty, I'm-better-than-you kind of way."
"I thought that was kinda his whole aura for everything."
Huh. "Touché."
Lily had to excuse herself shortly after, telling Mary she better give her all the details tomorrow, whether Sirius was sitting right there across from them at breakfast or not. (She wasn't sure if Mary would actually do such a thing. Probably not… right? Who knew. Mary would probably just do whatever felt right in the moment. What a way to live!)
Lily set off to tell Dumbledore that she'd secured him a spy.
"Lily!" She heard his exuberant voice before looking up from her complicated Arithmancy notes. "Lily," he repeated bounding over to her, broom slung over his shoulder.
"Yes, James?"
He dropped the broom as he sunk onto the couch next to her, grabbing her face unexpectedly and planting a giant smooch on her lips. She blinked rapidly at him in surprise. "We're gonna win."
She laughed. "Oh yeah?"
"Yes. Our team is so good this year, just— UH!" He reached behind his neck and tore off his jersey, revealing his white undershirt. He was so amped up, it was possibly the first time she didn't think this was some sort of premeditated seduction technique.
"Do you always wear that undershirt with your kit?" she asked, eyes glued to the sweaty piece.
James jerked his head, seemingly unprepared for her out-of-the-blue question. "Uh… yes? The nipple chafing is unreal otherwise." He gave her a suspicious glance. "Why?"
"No reason," she answered, purposefully looking back over her boring notes.
Mercifully, he didn't press her on it. "You should have seen us out there, Lils; it was so good."
She looked back up to him, reveling in all that pride he was emanating. "I can't wait to see you play again," she said softly.
"Yeah?" he asked, his eyes betraying his eagerness at her words.
This meant so much to him, she could feel it in the air. "Of course."
He leaned in and gave her a slow and tantalizing kiss as his thumbs stroked her cheeks. "I'll go shower," he said with a cocky grin as Lily recovered for a moment with her eyes still closed. That man can kiss.
A few minutes later, Lily decided to join him.
"Lily, Lil-ee," Mary spoke, giving her a dramatic stare with her chin tilted down. Lily sure could get used to her friends saying her name so merrily everywhere she went. She felt the corner of her lip curl up in anticipation for Mary's date recap. "It was ah-mazing."
"Yeah?!" Lily could tell her face had split into a shit-eating grin. It couldn't be helped.
"Yeah. Like surprisingly so?" Mary responded, scrunching up her nose adorably.
"Explain." The girls started walking down the stairs away from the Fat Lady.
"Well, I kinda went into it thinking it would be more of a hookup type situation, but… did you know the whole tough guy thing is pretty much an act and he's actually kinda a softie?"
Lily sighed. Well, took her one date to realize what it took me years to get, but sure. Fack. "Yeah. So what did you guys talk about?"
"Everything. We talked about our siblings, and how we're super protective of them. You know, so I said how unfair it is that Kate isn't a witch, and how I'm scared she'll grow up to resent me for it, and he could relate with Reg—" Reg?! Oh my… "—because he feels like he fucked up as an older bother." Lily felt a renewed pang of sympathy for Padfoot, vividly remembering how he'd looked when he'd apologized to her on his brother's behalf. "We talked about future plans, school… I don't know. I kinda felt like he had a checklist in his head, and we went through it, but, it was… cute." Mary shrugged with a smile. Lily was pretty sure Sirius would die if anyone ever called him 'cute,' even more so than James pretended to protest the adjective.
"So do you think you're gonna go on another date?" Lily pried.
"Yeah. I think so. I might ask him at breakfast."
Lily let out a sigh of relief she didn't know she'd been holding in. It was in that moment that she realized that although Mary was obviously her priority, at least a small part of her had been anxious on Sirius' behalf as well. He'd liked Mary longer, and was more invested than she was, and Lily was actually relieved that he wasn't about to get crushed emotionally. Caring this much about Sirius? When the hell did that happen?!
"He didn't kiss me though," Mary admitted. "We got back, you know, after being in close contact sneaking back in through a secret passageway for like 20 minutes, and then we get to our staircases… and he just said goodnight."
Lily frowned. "Not even a cheek kiss?"
"Nope."
"Weird."
"Okay, right? I thought so too. Because the rest of the date, I thought we were totally vibing."
"I'll ask him," Lily declared, making Mary look at her disbelievingly. "Don't worry. I won't try to be subtle, so I'll actually get an answer this time."
"Perfect."
The girls settled at the table with the Marauders and Marlene, the latter already looking ten times better than the last time Lily had seen her.
"Have you ever noticed," Sirius announced to the table confidently, "that the words brother and brothel are just one letter apart? An R and an L. Basically, just one Remus Lupin of difference."
"Does that mean that I, your brother, would be in a brothel if it weren't for Moony?" James asked airily, making Remus shake his head and down some coffee, trying not to get involved. Lily gave Mary a look that screamed: 'How are these the guys we're into?'
Sirius considered this. "I mean, maybe. Has Remus ever stopped you from selling your body for money?" He turned to her. "Lily do you pay him for his services?"
Lily slumped forward and straightened her brows with her thumb and pointer finger. She couldn't believe she'd just realized that she cared about this buffoon.
Sirius must have noticed her slight head shake. "What, Evans? Mad you didn't realize how close the words were yourself?"
Lily snorted. "I can't believe such genius went to waste on wordplay," she threw at him sarcastically.
"As long as you acknowledge my genius, I'm a happy man."
The rest of the conversation flowed in much the same way, but Lily couldn't help but notice that Sirius didn't seem to be engaging with Mary as much as she thought he should be. Mary didn't seem bothered, so she tried to let it go.
"Why didn't you kiss Mary?" Lily interrogated, the second she had separated him from the pack on the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"What?" Sirius seemed genuinely surprised by the question.
"After your date, she wanted you to kiss her, but you didn't."
Sirius scratched the back of his head. "Yeah. I thought about it..."
"But…?" Lily pushed.
"Fuck, does dating Mary involve dating you too?"
Lily crossed her arms. "Yes. Just like dating James involves… you."
Sirius smiled charmingly. "Fair."
"So, what's the reasoning? If you're not down for another date, you should tell her."
"No, I am," Sirius said hastily. "I just… didn't want her to think it was only about getting in her skirt."
Oh Merlin. This is just like when he decided not to talk to her so he wouldn't say anything idiotic. "Okay, I think she got that from the date part. Now she's wondering if you may be friend-zoning her."
"I'm not!" Sirius spat out, actually looking kind of upset. "Fuck, I just—" he pushed his hair back, "—I don't know what I'm doing."
Lily softened her approach instantly. "What do you mean?"
"That depends." He gave her a side eye. "Am I talking to Mary's best friend, or a mate?"
Okay, smooth buddy. She was reminded why James and him were thick as thieves. "Your mate."
Sirius let out a deep breath. "I've never really tried with a girl before. Not really." He looked at the portrait next to them. "Like I usually just find a girl to shag, and we have fun, and it's cool, and then… I dunno, I never see her again." Oh the life of the heartbreakingly gorgeous. "So this is new territory for me."
"Okay," Lily said tentatively, glad he was being this open with her and not wanting to scare him away. "You just gotta show a little affection, that's all."
Sirius looked like he wanted to vomit. "Evans, I'm not Prongs. That shit doesn't— it isn't—" he looked like he was malfunctioning.
Suddenly Lily got it. Sirius legitimately didn't know how to display affection because he'd rarely seen it before. His parents most certainly didn't have it for each other, and it sounded like they'd barely doled it out to him, if at all, so he was sort of running blind here. Lily sadly wondered if maybe James was one of the first people to give him any true affection. James had been heavily doted on, as a miracle baby, since the day he was born — no wonder he required that kind of love so greedily now.
Lily stepped in. "Okay, here's what you do: next time you see Mary, when you're not in class, you grab her and you just snog the hell out of her."
Sirius blinked at her a few times. "Are you joking?"
"Nope. Serious as a heart attack."
"… why would you say that?"
"It's an expression."
"I hate it."
"Quit stalling."
"I'm not stalling."
"Will you do it?"
"Isn't that kinda dramatic?"
Lily snorted. Sirius wondering if something was too dramatic? Ha! "Mary loves dramatic."
Sirius broke from their verbal sparring to narrow his gaze at her. "Fine. But if this all blows up in my face, I'm taking you down with me."
"I'd expect nothing less."
Lily was able to slip Mary a breath mint 'for no reason' before lunch. Not five minutes later, Sirius had seized her before she had the chance to sit down, dipped her to nearly parallel to the floor, and kissed her good.
"What are you looking so smug about?" James asked by Lily's side, looking rather pleased with the show their best mates were putting on himself.
"I did that," Lily claimed proudly.
"Huh. What happened to not interfering?"
"It's Mare and Pads, James. They needed our help, okay?" she joked. "I did what I had to do." When he didn't respond, she looked over to find him smiling at her. "What?" she asked.
"Nothing." He hooked her neck by the crook of his elbow and kissed the top of her head. "I've just never heard you call him Pads before."
Lily blushed. "Am I not allowed to?"
"No, you are. I like it."
That night, Sirius wrangled everyone to the lake to have a final dip before the weather got too chilly. Truth be told, Lily felt like they were already kind of pushing it, but his enthusiasm couldn't be tempered, and it was good to get Marlene out of her room to do something fun. Dorcas and Hestia even joined.
As soon as Lily stepped a toe into the water, Sirius hit her with a spell. "Hey! What was that?" she cried.
"Buoyancy spell. So Prongs here can fucking relax," he yelled the last part to a nervous looking James who was playing with this hair. Now that Sirius mentioned it, Lily noticed that her necklace had been tingling.
"Wait," she furrowed her brows at James, "why didn't you just do that for our lessons, Potter?"
James joined her in the water, almost shyly. "And miss all that hands-on action, Evans? No way."
"Prat." Lily smiled.
James winked before picking her up and tossing her unceremoniously into the deeper waters, making Lily yelp as she bobbed up and down on the surface. This move started an all out water war with Mary dunking Sirius, and Dorcas and Marlene chasing after poor Remus, splashing him relentlessly. Peter soaked them all with a cannonball off of a nearby rock.
Being the newest swimmer, Lily tired out the fastest and retreated to the safety of the shore to watch her friends continue their shenanigans. James joined her shortly afterwards, whipping the water out of his hair before transforming a pebble into a towel and wrapping it around her shoulders.
"What about for you?"
"Huh. Drats," he sighed dramatically as he forced a shiver through his body. "I only had one transfiguration spell in me." She gave him a fake unamused look, fully on to his antics. "Guess there's only one towel for both of us."
"What a pity," she said standing up.
"You're really gonna leave me here?" he squeaked, clearly having expected her to just scoot closer to his side and share.
"Spread em, Potter," she ordered.
James' brows disappeared into his hairline until he realized she meant to sit between his knees. "Okay," he said happily, making room for her. She put the towel over him before settling between his legs, James instantly cocooning her in his arms. "You're always so cold, Evans."
"Warm me up, then." James did so, rubbing his hand up and down her biceps and shins. "Is that—?" she asked.
"You can ignore it," James answered quickly. Lily wiggled her butt back against him all the same. "Tease," he whispered huskily in her ear.
Lily tittered as she resumed watching her friends. Mary was still play-fighting with Sirius, and Lily more than recognized innocent flirting when she saw it. "Remember when we were like that?"
"Like what?" James asked, resting his chin on her head.
"Finding any excuse just to touch you to see if you would let me."
James chuckled. "Yeah, the end of 4th year was pretty magical."
It was dumb how easily he could make her smile from ear to ear. "I love you," Lily whispered.
James tilted her head back so he could answer her declaration by infusing his own into her lips.
Remus dragged him away to fight off the girls shortly after.
Before they knew it, it was already the last class on Friday, and everyone seemed extra hyped up for the talent show that would be taking place after dinner. Lily had nearly bitten James' head off at lunch when she found out that he wasn't even performing, but instead was opting to emcee.
"What?" James asked as he dodged her flying book. "Someone's gotta do it!"
"What about Remus?" Lily cried. The boy in question looked positively horrorstruck.
"Evans. Stage managing and hosting are very different beasts."
"You shouldn't be surprised," Sirius had said through a mouth full of kidney pie. "You out of anyone should know that none of Prongs' secret talents are PG."
Perhaps Carter could sense the antsy cloud hanging over her classroom, or maybe she just wanted to make up for last week's lackluster duel, but she seemed determined to have a good one this week.
"James Potter will be dueling… Sirius Black." Well, there goes my theory that I was going to face off against him.
James and Sirius both hopped to their feet, jokingly talking shit as they bowed to each other in the middle of the room. Lily could instantly tell that they did this a lot at home. Watching them was like watching a choreographed dance, all quick moves, tumbles, and elegant dodges and weaves. Sirius laughed and taunted the whole time while James meticulously studied him, seemingly always the tiniest step ahead. We should practice dueling, Lily thought, suddenly struck by how dumb it was that they hadn't started before. It wasn't like they didn't have the space for it.
As the duel went into its fifteenth minute, and a light sheen of sweat made James' tan skin glisten, Lily was finding it harder and harder to ignore her growing need for him. Seeing him fight was just so unreasonably hot.
Finally, it looked like Sirius had won when he hit James' right arm with a spell that removed all the bones in it, rendering it into a blubbering meat sac. James dropped his wand instantly, his fingers now just rubber, and Sirius claimed victory. But then, James unexpectedly somersaulted onto the floor, grabbing his wand left-handed, and rolled up to his feet in front of Sirius while simultaneously Expelliarmusing him. To add insult to injury, the momentum of James' maneuver had propelled James' flopping arm right into Sirius' face.
Sirius stood there gaping. "I can't believe you just bitch-slapped me!"
"I can't believe you messed up my arm! There's no way this will regrow before tonight!" James looked down at his appendage gloomily.
"Well done, well done," Carter declared. After the duels, she liked breaking them down with both the fighters so the class could learn from their mistakes and triumphs. "As we just saw, Mr Black could benefit from not celebrating until he is 100 percent certain that his opponent is defeated." Sirius gave a dark grumble, clearly not liking this advice. "As for Mr Potter, smart move learning how to use magic ambidextrously. What an extremely useful skill to have in battle, I can't tell you enough—"
But Lily stopped hearing her lecture as it was drowned out by the ringing in her ears. Time seemingly stood still as her gaze horrifiedly shifted to the Death Eaters in the class. It was the first time she realized how harmful these classroom duels were.
Feeling her panic, James turned to her. "Sorry Professor, may Miss Evans please escort me to the hospital wing? I'd like to start regrowing this back as soon as possible."
As soon as they were in the hall, he asked her what was wrong. "My arm's not that hurt if you're worried. You know Poppy; she can fix this easy." If Lily hadn't been so worried, she may have had to laugh with just how much the arm in question was jiggling about.
"The Death Eaters. They were just…" Lily pushed the hair that had escaped her bun behind her ears. "I just realized that we're basically giving them all our secrets. Your strengths and weaknesses. Now they know you can do magic leftie, and that could have been the thing that saved your life, like a secret weapon down the line, you know?" Her thoughts were all coming to her in frazzled fragments, but they all spelled out the same thing: danger, danger, danger.
James considered this seriously. "Fuck," he finally concluded.
"Yeah." They walked to the infirmary in silence.
"Welcome to Hogwarts' very own Talent Show!" James declared enthusiastically with his wand-amplified voice, dead arm still swinging a few hours later. Poppy had tried to hold him for observation as the Skele-Gro did its job, but James had refused her, citing that he had an extremely important job to do. Of course, this meant that he wasn't fully healed by the time he took to the stage and did his thing. He most certainly wasn't accustomed to his peers being grossed out when they looked at him, but he was taking it in stride. Before long, his temporary deformity had become a running gag, and he was basically making it his talent to be able to bend something new on his arm every now and then.
The Ravenclaw prefects had really pulled through with the refreshments. They must have been able to sweet-talk Flitwick into allowing them to import crates full of Butterbeer from Hogsmeade. Lily was pretty sure they were all spiked, and she wasn't even mad about it. Anything to make this show a hit was more than okay in her book. The booze seemed to be working, because the crowd was getting more and more boisterous with each act.
The show started off with a group of adorable first years doing a choreographed dance. They were absolutely terrible, but they were clearly having so much fun. Shortly afterwards, a shy 4th year Hufflepuff recited a poem, and a 7th year Ravenclaw practically conjured an entire zoo in front of everyone, making them all oo and ah as the animals roamed free amongst the audience.
Soon, Remus had Lily on deck while James introduced Sirius to the stage. He strutted up confidently, dedicating his bit to a special lady, saying, "You know who you are." Lily watched as all the witches before him broke out into excited chatter, discussing with their friends if he could possibly be talking about one of them. Then the hall fell into a tense hush as Sirius turned around and a deep bass started blaring. Lily had a bad feeling about this. She wanted to look away, but she was drawn in, ready to see this disaster. She knew James had practically forced Sirius to perform, and she was thinking he was going to punish him for it in some way.
Sirius' hips started swaying, and then he slyly looked over his shoulder and brought his pointer finger up and shook it side to side. Oh god. She could practically hear him saying, "Nah ah ah." Then he turned back and slowly — sensually? — started removing his robe. The crowd went nuts. This time when Sirius turned back to them to motion 'no, no, no,' with his finger, he had on the cockiest grin.
"Bloody hell," Remus said exasperatedly next to Lily.
But Sirius wasn't done yet. He loosened his tie while rolling his shoulders, and then, egged on by his captive audience, power slid across the stage, ripping his shirt wide open. A girl in the front row fainted while everyone else screamed.
All of a sudden, Sirius' shirt was perfectly intact again and his tie was tightened to a nearly suffocating extreme. His discarded robe flew up from off the stage and swaddled him like he was an overactive newborn. "No!" McGonagall reprimanded, wand aloft. "Just no."
James was laughing so hard at what he'd just witnessed that he looked like he was on the verge of pissing himself and needed a few seconds before he could resume emceeing. Wiping under his eyes and straightening back up, he finally said, "Sorry, Padfoot, turns out you were just too sexy for this stage." He turned to Lily with a wink. "Speaking of too sexy," Oh my Merlin, "now my delectable girlfriend is going to close off the show by performing a song... that I've only been dying to hear for going on four years now." He dramatically motioned towards her. "The one. The only: Lily Evans!"
Okay, as far as introductions she'd gotten in her life went, this was probably her new favorite.
Lily slowly made her way to the center of the stage and looked out over her peers. You've done this before with bigger crowds, relax. It's just like how it used to be in Cokeworth. She took a deep breath and magicked an orchestra of instruments into existence, ready to start playing. Drunk students cheered, clearly thinking this was going to be the skill she demonstrated. Hang on, she thought amused as the sad, gentle notes of a piano reverberated through the hall. Lily felt her breath hitch further. She felt so exposed up here, about to perform a song publicly that she hadn't since... that night. Her parents had loved hearing her sing. Suddenly, a ripple of panic shot through her — Why the hell am I doing this? — but then her eyes found James. And he gave her an encouraging smile and a nod and she remembered. Everything was fine. Everything was okay. Do it for him. Sing for James.
She started her song and felt the rush of comfort and familiarity that she hadn't known she'd been missing flood her veins. I'm good at this. I know this. The lyrics were so deeply ingrained in her memory at this point that she didn't even have to think about them; they just flowed from her as though she was merely expressing her soul, letting everything out, sharing it with James.
The music swelled as she hit all her notes, and Lily looked at James. Just James. He couldn't have looked more mesmerized if he tried — a small awestruck smile on an otherwise loose jaw. He couldn't take his eyes off of her, like he wanted her to sing to him forever. Everyone else faded from view, and it was just the two of them, alone and so fucking in love with each other that nothing else mattered.
Lily breathed out her last note, and she finally heard the cheers of other people, but she could still only focus on James, walking towards her, his grin now goofy. She had a sneaking suspicion he was about to kiss her on stage in front of everyone. She felt herself giggle a little bit in anticipation, her eyes still wet with the emotion her song had coaxed out of her.
But that kiss was not meant to be, because the next thing she knew, the stage blew up under her feet, and the last thing she saw, as her flesh felt as though it was on fire and she blacked out, was James being thrown backwards out of reach.
Next Chapter: Carrying On