So much of James Potter's life seems to involve wondering how he let someone talk him into doing something. Usually Sirius is to blame, although this time, it's his mother's work: Euphemia, Strictly Come Dancing super-fan and ardent adorer of Graziano, the Italian stallion professional dancer, had decided that her best bet for meeting this dancing dreamboat was to bully her son until he finally accepted the offer to feature in the next series of her favourite programme. To be fair to her, it didn't take an awful lot of bullying—a few well-chosen bits of emotional blackmail, the usual reference to his long and arduous childbirth that "nearly destroyed my nethers, James" and the reminder that he owed her after he turned down a stint on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here two years ago, and he's signing on the dotted line.
Back then, in the quiet of his agent's office, it hadn't seemed like such a bad idea. Good money, a bit of a laugh, flirt with Claudia Winkleman, probably out mid-series in time to get back to his life. Easy.
Here and now, though, under the bright lights and with the atmosphere of the studio audience at fever pitch, he's not so sure.
The launch show has started. Tess Daly is smiling down the barrel of the camera, a vision in a glittering gown; indeed, almost everything is glittering. James glances down at himself, at what seems at first glance to be a straightforward suit—as straightforward as a suit with tails can be—but that actually is hewn from a shimmering, spangly fabric that catches the studio lights with every move he makes. "You look like a disco ball," Sirius had said, helpfully, when he'd stopped by James' dressing room earlier. He hadn't been wrong, but still. There's a way to phrase these things.
To his right, a soap opera actress is trying her best to pretend she isn't shaking with nerves. She had been in the makeup chair earlier at the same time as him, and hadn't been able to stop trying to guess who her professional partner would be. James can't even begin to guess how they make these decisions. He's tall, maybe that comes into consideration? As long as it's one of the nice ones.
(Most of them are nice, it seems. A few taskmasters—that red-head, for one, and the one with the thick Russian accent—but that's to be expected. The rest seem the sort who will speak to him softly and smile encouraging at every effort he makes. Lovely. What more could a chap ask for?)
Performing under pressure is par for the course for James. He couldn't have become the youngest cricketer to score a century for England if he couldn't live up to a bit of pressure. But it would be nice to be coddled a bit, too, if that's possible. He gets plenty of tough love from his mother, and Sirius, and Remus, and…well, most people, now that he thinks about it.
Luisa from Eastenders is delighted to be paired up with some tall adonis of a professional dancer. James watches them shimmy off, doing his best not to feel anything close to envy; he knows he looks pretty decent with his top off, but Jesus, perhaps it's time for a spray tan and some more abs work, because these blokes look like they've been carved from marble.
Tess is cueing up his intro video, and he directs an easy smile to the camera. He's always been comfortable on telly, enjoying his interviews on Sky Sports, pitchside chatter, even the odd excursion onto Graham Norton after he won BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Which is part of the intro video, naturally. He doesn't think he'll ever get tired of that clip of his reaction to the win.
Cutting back to the studio. He fixes up his charming grin once more, hooking his thumbs into the sparkling cumberbund that encircles his waist. "I'm ready to learn, Tess," he replies to whatever question it was she had asked—he's finding it hard to concentrate. Starting to get nervous now, he can admit. "I like to win, so I'm looking forward to that, too."
Tess laughs the kind of TV laugh that he is familiar with, the one that says he has been mildly amusing and it's time to move the conversation on.
"And now, to reveal your professional partner…" Tess is almost fit to burst with excitement. The dramatic music hums in the background. "The person who could help you, James Potter, score a century on the dancefloor—"
(Unlikely, James thinks, given that the maximum score is forty, unless they're bringing in six new additional judges, which would be quite the format change—anyway. He needs to get used to cricket puns. He has a feeling they'll come thick and fast during his Strictly journey.)
"—is the one and only, Lily Evans!"
The crowd erupts in whooping applause. James' gaze flicks over to the woman in question, the red-head whose smile is fixed, bright, to the point that most probably wouldn't be able to notice the fact that it doesn't quite meet her eyes. Excellent. She hates him already.
"Oh wow!" he claims, as she skips over to him, glittering sequins dancing round her thighs as she moves. "No way!"
"My sporting hero!" Lily beams, throwing her arms around him in a showbiz hug—all shoulders, no chest, and certainly no hips. "Oh, it's going to be great!"
"Can't wait to get started," he grins in return.
The afterparties are legendary; his England teammate, Gid Prewett, was on the show a few series' ago, and still spoke fondly of the "all-out bacchanalia". James can see why.
The audience has been cleared and the main studio lights brought up, which takes the glamorous edge off slightly, but the room is packed with people, sparkling and laughing and downing champagne like it's water. Someone has put together a playlist, all up-tempo numbers, and a lot of the professional dancers are swinging each other around the floor, or trying to engage their new celebrity partners in a bit of light-hearted practice.
Not Lily. He's not sure where she is—hasn't seen her, in fact, since they parted ways backstage just after the final on-camera farewell of "keep dancing!" She hadn't said anything, just slipped her hand from his and melted into the crush.
Not that James minded. He'd wanted to change as soon as possible; some of his fellow celebs were still in their launch show costumes, diamante-d to the hilt, but he had started to feel like a strange, spangly penguin. Better to switch back into something that felt a bit more like him.
Somewhere, he knows, is Sirius, and his mum and dad; knowing his mum, she is probably pawing at Graziano, or at the very least, informing Craig Revel Horwood (her favourite judge, in spite of—or perhaps because of—his meanness) all the ways in which he was wrong this evening. She's a force of nature, his mum. Maybe she'll manage to get Craig to change his ways.
But wherever they are, he can't see them. He sighs, resigning himself to small talk with people he doesn't know well for the time being, and starts to edge through the thrum of people towards the drinks table.
There, he comes up behind a familiar head of dark red hair, no longer loosed in waves around her shoulders but now neatly tied in a high ponytail. Her shoulders are bare, and he is momentarily distracted by the expanse of porcelain skin before him; that is, until he catches her words.
"—thinks he's better than this," she is saying, with clear distaste, to the woman at her side—another pro dancer, not paired up, one of the ones who takes part in the group dances. She is tall and icy-blonde, the sort of look that catches his eye even without trying. Sirius says he is hopelessly predictable like that. "I just knew I was going to get stuck with him."
"Better?" Lily's companion asks disdainfully. "How so?"
There's a pause, as if she is considering whether to say what she really wants to or not. Evidently she chooses the latter—probably wise, given that it's possible James isn't the only one listening in. "He's an arrogant prick," Lily said, voice cold. He can't see her face, but can easily picture an expression to match. "Already unbearably smug."
The blonde snorts, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Well, with any luck, he will not last and you will not have to put up with him for long."
James is already turning away, a strange heat to his cheeks that he can't quite explain. He slips back through the crowd, away from the woman who is supposed to be on his team, the woman who is happily and fervently slagging him off. All of a sudden, he wants to go home. He truly has his work cut out for him. And not just learning the dance moves. Something tells him that every minute spent in Lily Evans' disapproving presence is going to be nothing short of painful. He can't just charm his way through this one.
Should he just quit? Giving up isn't really in his nature, but this is an extreme situation. It's not often you're paired up with someone willing to call you an arrogant prick within minutes of meeting you. Quitting would be tricky, of course, given that the launch show has already been broadcast live to however many millions of people. But his agent would sort something; they could invent a hamstring injury, or dancer's foot, or whatever. The embarrassment of not seeing his contract through would be tempered by the fact that he wouldn't have to spend time with someone who clearly hates him…
"Prongs!" Sirius appears at his elbow, grinning, his eyes glassy with free champagne and, probably, all the extremely attractive people around him. "There you are! Thought you'd done a runner already."
James lets his gaze flick back over towards the drinks table; allows himself a moment to wonder if Lily is still there, talking about him. To wonder if, actually, that even matters. Because of course it doesn't. He's James Fucking Potter. What does he need the approval of some jumped-up, snooty dancer for? The frown he was wearing smooths away, replaced with a grin of his own, and a wink for good measure.
"No," he replies, and plucks the flute from his friend's hand. The drink fizzes down his throat, easy as breathing. "I'm not going anywhere."
The cameras follow them around as they rehearse, he who has never danced in his life (unless you count waving your hands in the air at a wedding, three sheets to the wind and without a care in the world, which he doesn't) and her who seems to be dance personified. Whiplash personified, too, because as soon as the cameras are off, she becomes a very different person; under their lens, she was warm, gentle with him as he made mistakes, but without them there as a barrier, she tuts and sighs and seems to take every error as a personal affront. James doesn't know if he's coming or going all bloody week.
"I'm having a great time," he lies through his teeth for one of his pre-recorded VTs; Lily is doing warm-up stretches in the back of the shot, and he feels very aware that she can hear every word he says. It's not like he can say 'she's a mad woman who won't explain why she hates me so much', is it? That's hardly Saturday BBC prime time fare.
"Are you any good, though?" Sirius asks on Thursday evening. James has fastened as many ice packs as he can lay his hands on to his sore muscles, muscles that even he—fit and healthy sportsman that he is—hadn't realised existed. "Or are we looking at one and done? Because if so, we have to warn mum."
James sighs and closes his eyes, as if it might change the circumstances he finds himself in. Yes, after the launch show he'd felt determined to stick things out, to not let this snotty dancing goddess knock him down, but that was the before times. Now, his whole body aches, she barely talks to him outside of rehearsals, and he's becoming more and more worried that he's about to humiliate himself on national telly.
"I don't know," he admits. "That's the thing. I know the steps and all that. But—she's a closed book, I'm telling you. I have no idea if I'm even passably decent."
"Huh." James opens his eyes a crack, catches Sirius watching him thoughtfully. "If you'd asked me who would be the one to finally bring you to your knees…"
"You wouldn't have said a tiny, beautiful monster?"
Sirius nodded his agreement. "Disappointed it wasn't me, to be honest."
"As ever, your support is so appreciated," James sighs again. "Now piss off so I can bathe in ice like a normal person."
His best friend's cackle as he leaves the house does nothing to calm James' nerves.
Saturday arrives, and he watches from the side of the dancefloor as the pro dancers rehearse one of their group numbers for the show. At first, he's just enjoying the spectacle—there really is something so satisfying about watching people do something so well, as if it were as easy as breathing. But then his focus zeroes in on Lily Evans.
So this is what she looks like when she's enjoying herself. She moves across the floor, finesse in every step, slides close to her (annoyingly handsome, toned) partner, their bodies now moving as one, twirling, grinding, swooping, and she's mesmerising. Transcendent. Annoying, irritatingly good.
(He'd done some research on her during the week, when his attempts at small talk during the breaks in rehearsal had got him precisely nowhere. She was from a small midlands town called Cokeworth; she'd worked her way up dancing in every spare minute she got while also achieving A Levels and a first class honours degree, competing in national and then international competitions. She was fiercely private, but had become an instant hit when she first appeared on Strictly two years ago—the public loved her, one of the newspapers had given her the nickname 'Firecracker Evans', Twitter were obsessed with her even when the show wasn't on. It seemed to James that everyone knew more about her, knew more about who she really was, than he did, and he was spending nine hours a day with her in a sweaty dance studio in Pimlico.)
Maybe, he thinks grimly, trying to ignore the churning of nerves in his stomach, she'll dance with me like that one day.
It would require her to actually look him in the eye outside of rehearsals, but he's always been an optimist.
The show begins, and others dance, and score about what you might expect amateurs to score. James stands in the crowd behind Claudia, waiting his turn with a rictus grin, and it takes Lily about forty five minutes before she notices there's something wrong. "What's up with you?" she asks, sotto voce, after the camera has cut back to Tess.
"Me?" he asks in reply, and tries to look nonchalant. Fucking hell, he wasn't even this nervous before his first Ashes. He feels like if he moves too much, he will throw up all over his very shiny shoes. "Nothing."
He's aware of her watching him, scepticism radiating from her every pore, and it's almost three full minutes later—as pop sensation Ally finishes her cha cha cha on the dancefloor behind them—that he feels a small, cool but steady hand take his, and squeeze.
It helps more than he expects it to.
It turns out, he can dance.
After the scores are dished out, and the camera has cut back to whoever is next, Lily leads him by the hand out of the studio and into the corridor, pausing to look up at him. She's smiling, almost reluctantly, and he can only stare back at her, still in a bit of a daze from receiving a seven and three eights ("unheard of in week one!" Claudia had beamed) and from the fact that she was still, even out here where no cameras could film them, holding his hand.
"Well done," she says, and perhaps comes to the same realisation, because she lets go of his hand, smoothing down the satin of her dress as if it really needed doing. "I think we'll be okay. The public like a sportsman, never mind one who's handsome and can dance…" Strangely, her cheeks flush pink, and her green eyes dart away from him before he can analyse her gaze much at all. "Well, anyway. Well done. Go and have a drink."
"Right," he says, and, "thanks," and, "um," because evidently his vocabulary has shrunk to the size of a thimble, and she smiles once more before leaving him there in the sterile white lighting of backstage, wondering what exactly has happened to him.
And why did he seem to enjoy it so much?
They get through to the next week; a morning show presenter is sent home; Lily actually smiles at him at the afterparty. She doesn't talk to him, or even move to stand in his periphery, but a smile? He considers that progress. Maybe she's not so snooty after all.
He tells Sirius as much, and is surprised when his friend laughs and laughs.
"What?" he asks, frowning in confusion. "What's so funny?"
Sirius just smirks. "Oh, Prongs," he replies. "This is going to be so much fun."
Ominous.
