"Lily, could you at least try not to look like you're being walked to the electric chair?" Mary rolled her eyes at her friend.

"I'm trying my best." Lily huffed.

Mary took Lily's hand and dragged her the last couple of metres to the entrance to the ice.

Lily could see James already on the ice stroking and doing a few crossovers. She suddenly wanted to throw up. She wasn't sure if it was because of the thought of dancing with him, or because even she couldn't deny just how incredibly neat his edgework was.

Minerva skated over to Lily. "Lily, I'm glad you're finally here. Let's go get James."

Lily threw one last mournful look at Mary and let Minerva lead her away.

Before they reached James, Minerva took Lily's arm and whispered to her, "I'm proud of you for giving him a chance."

Lily tried to smile but couldn't quite pull it off. She really didn't want to disappoint her coach.

Lily dared a brief look at James, who smirked at her. Oh, she was already regretting this.

"Let's get started with a Silver Samba since you're both quite familiar with that pattern from last season. I'll get the music started, and both of you do a few crossovers in Kilian hold until the music starts."

Lily took a deep breath. This was it; she was going to try and skate with James, someone she'd never in a million years considered skating with. Someone, she didn't even remotely like — someone who had tormented her for years.

She'd already considered the fact that she was going to have to touch him and let him touch her. She'd pored over this last night, and came to the conclusion that this was all merely professional and as long as he kept it that way, she would too.

So, as Minerva skated away, Lily looked at James but didn't make a move to get into hold. She wasn't quite sure how to go about this, but James quickly held out his left hand and extended his right arm – where she should go.

Lily rolled her shoulders to relax and slowly approached James. She stood to James's right, reached over his chest, and gingerly placed her hand on his. James took this as a sign to finally let his other arm touch her back and put his hand on her hip. A chill ran down Lily's spine. What the fuck. She wanted to get out of his hold as soon as he touched her but refrained. She wished this could be an open Kilian hold, but she'd never defied Minerva's instructions, so she finally placed her free hand on James's.

She felt like her skin burnt where James touched her, even though there were about four layers of clothes between them (which gave a little comfort to Lily).

She cleared her throat. "Let's go then."

They stroked for a little bit, finding their edges, in what Lily considered a decent unison. She tried to concentrate on the skating, but she caught her friends' eyes a few times, all of them were smiling knowingly at her, which infuriated her.

Lily and James had barely completed a couple of crossovers when the samba music started. Lily immediately jumped out of James's arms, and she needed a little break of being in such proximity to him for a whole of three minutes.

Suddenly Lily remembered that James and Catherine had only missed two key points in the Silver Samba in the entire previous season; she and John had missed nine. And yes, she had indeed spent the last night poring over every single one of James's protocols — his detailed results — that were available to her.

The song Minerva had put on was Sympathy for the Devil, which Lily had wanted to skate to for the Short Dance last season but had been thoroughly refused by John since he thought the judges would prefer something more 'traditional.' Lily knew Minerva had put it on so she'd be in better spirits, and honestly, it was working a little bit.

Lily went back into hold with James, a little less reluctant this time. They caught the beat of the song and got started. For the first section of the pattern, Lily tried hard to focus on hitting her key points and keeping her knee bend stable, but as they went into the second section, she started relaxing a bit more.

She had wanted to skate to this song last season because it was a song you couldn't help but want to dance to, and not just dance, perform.

James was hitting all his key points scarily easy, and her key points were alright.

She had no idea if it was because of the music or something else, but she was feeling pretty good about their pattern. She hadn't even realised how fast they were going until they almost ran Mary over, who got out of the way just in time.

As they finished the second section, Lily saw Minerva out of the corner of her eye, with the biggest smile on her face. Her stomach dropped.

She looked at James, with whom she'd tried to avoid eye contact with for most of the pattern.

He smirked at her. "Not bad, Evans."

She wanted to give a snarky reply so bad, but she managed to keep herself in check. She would be the bigger person here.

Minerva gave a few more instructions for some elements, which, luckily for Lily, did not require much touching. Then she said something that Lily was not expecting.

"Maybe you're ready to try a simple lift."

Lily's heart skipped a beat. She looked at her coach with wide eyes, incredulous. What was happening?

"Lily, just let James carry you a bit so that he can get used to your weight," Minerva instructed.

Lily tried incredibly hard to stop a blush from spreading on her cheeks. She knew that Catherine was much thinner than her, having a lighter frame, being about six inches shorter than Lily. Lily knew Minerva meant nothing by mentioning weight, but Lily did not want to have that discussion with James, even if they did become partners, she refused to discuss her weight with him.

Lily took a deep breath as James approached her from behind. He wrapped an arm around Lily's torso and picked up her legs with his other arm, Lily's breath caught, she hoped he wouldn't notice.

James carried Lily around the ice bridal style for a little bit. Lily realised she'd been holding her breath. She couldn't help being all too aware of how close her face was to James's, she didn't know where to look. After staring at James's sharp jawbone for a few seconds too long, she settled on looking at the other skaters on the ice.

"You comfy?" James asked.

Lily turned back to look at him, she'd almost been able to ignore the fact that it was James Potter carrying her for a second, but alas. "As long as you don't drop me."

On cue, James loosened his arms slightly, let go of her slightly just to catch her again in a second.

Lily let out a yelp, her stomach dropped. "Don't. Do. That."

James chuckled at her reaction. Lily then realised that she'd latched onto his shoulder like a koala in the second she'd thought she was about to hit the ice. She loosened her grip.

James came to a stop and started spinning slowly on the spot. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing! I'm literally stationary on the ice."

Lily rolled her eyes. Was she really gonna have to deal with this 24/7?

Before Lily could voice her witty reply, Minerva appeared beside them, and thankfully, James put her down. "Since you seem comfortable enough, you could try a more difficult position, are you up for that, Lily?"

Lily told herself to stay calm and gave a few instructions to James. As they skated over to a less crowded spot, Lily started to regret going for a lift that required a lot of flexibility, which she had, but not at the level that Catherine did. It was too late now, though.

Lily put her hand on James's shoulder, readying herself to be hoisted into his arms, she looked James in the eye for the first time that day, looking for some sort of reassurance, which she knew was stupid. James looked at her softly and nodded firmly. Lily released the breath she'd been holding.

James placed an arm firmly around Lily's waist, Lily was all too aware of the fact that his hand was so big it almost covered her entire abdomen, especially since he held on very tightly, which made Lily slightly uncomfortable, but it was either that or hitting the ice.

James lifted her about a foot off the ground and started spinning on the spot slowly as Lily opened her legs into a split. He helped her with her position by slightly pulling on the calf of her front leg.

Lily focused on maintaining her position as well as she could while James spun a little faster before finally putting her down. Lily's first thoughts as her blades hit the ice again were, oh, that wasn't so bad, which was the most surprising thing that had happened up to that point.

Libertango was playing when Lily walked into the rink that afternoon. She couldn't help the scowl that overcame her features. Libertango had been the music she and John had used for their free dance the previous season, it only reminded her now only of their last skate together at the Junior Grand Prix Final, it hadn't been great.

She tried to ignore the music and headed over to the locker room. Mary wasn't there yet. She and Lily were supposed to be teaching skating lessons for a couple of hours before their own training sessions, both of them could use the extra cash.

Lily put away her things and started to lace up her skates. She couldn't stop thinking about John now, she'd been telling herself for months that it was best they go their own ways, especially after everything he'd said to her, but sometimes there was a tiny voice in her head that told her that if John came back, she would take him back. Hell, she'd take Severus back if he wanted at this point. She'd recently sat down with her therapist to analyse these thoughts and came to the conclusion that what she wanted was familiarity, she didn't want to get to know yet another new partner, get into unison with someone, it had been hard enough the first time. She wanted someone she knew as well as Severus or even John with whom she'd been with for less than a year, someone who could anticipate her moves and match their body lines perfectly, but sadly the only people she had that with were massive arseholes. She really could pick them, couldn't she?

She wished she was one of those (few) skaters who stuck with the same partner since they were children, she had really thought she had that with Severus, they were together for almost eight years. Then they had fallen out, and the moment Severus had said those horrible things to her, she knew she'd never skate with him again. She didn't like to think about that, though. It hadn't taken her very long to find John, she had almost been infatuated with him back then, though now that she thought about it, she'd been more obsessed with his skating than anything else. He was fast, and his toned physique allowed them to do far more acrobatic lifts than she ever did with Severus. John was also much better at emoting and at choreography than Severus ever was. She'd been so happy to be with him in the first few months, but then he'd started getting angry at her for everything and blaming her for their shortcomings. If he hadn't ended the partnership, Lily probably would've, though it would have taken longer.

As she thought back to what it felt like to skate with John, she couldn't stop comparing him to James now. It was evident that James was the better skater; he had incredible control of his edges, and speed and flow beyond his years.

Lily thought back to the conversation she'd had with her mother the previous night. After Lily had dumped all of her issues with James on her, her mother had told her that it all boiled down to a simple question: did she think she'd grow to be as comfortable skating with James as she had been with Severus or even John?

Lily thought back to how she'd felt when she'd been in James's arms, how his grip on her waist felt, how his long fingers pressed against her side. An unwelcome shiver ran down her spine.

Lily finished tying up her skates, replaced her soakers with guards, and stepped out of the locker room with a confidence in her step.

As she walked into the main rink, her eyes quickly scanned the place before her gaze settled on him.

Remus and Sirius flanked James, he was laughing at something or other, his laughter almost filled the rink, but he didn't seem to notice. Lily shook her head as she realised Sirius didn't even have his skates on yet. She had no idea how Melanie dealt with him.

Lily stood a few feet in front of the boys, her arms crossed over her chest. Remus and Sirius took one look at her and bid farewell, and good luck to their friend.

James approached Lily. "Hey, what's up, Lils?"

Lily cringed. "Don't call me that." She sighed and rubbed her temple. "I've given it a lot of thought, and... I'll do it."

James smiled cheekily. "Do what, Lils?"

Lily scoffed under her breath. "Are you seriously going to make me say it?"

"Say what?"

"I will be your skating partner, Potter." Lily tried not to gag as she spoke.

James's eyes lit up. He was about to open his mouth when Lily raised a finger to stop him. "With a few conditions."

James's smile did not dim. He nodded at her to go on.

"First, you have to promise to be professional at all times and not to rile me up or be obnoxious when we're together. Second, we will set a list of goals for the season, and we will both put the same amount of work into achieving said goals. Third, at the end of the season, we will review our performance, and decide if we should stay together. Lastly, this does not mean that we are friends, this is a professional partnership, so treat it as such." Lily said seriously.

"Okay," James counted off with his fingers. "Can I be obnoxious outside of our skating affairs? Yes. As you wish. And it's too late, we're already friends, Lilyflower."

"We're also adding not calling me any ridiculous pet names to the list."

James grinned. "Too late, it's done. I'm gonna go tell Minnie you said yes!" He ran off before Lily could say something else.