AN: I forgot to say thank you last chapter to the person who sent me a review! I really appreciated it!

By the end of the first week, Lily was ready to tear her hair out. Spending such an outrageous amount of time with James had not been as bad as she'd expected, which wasn't much to say since she'd been expecting it to be absolutely horrible.

They had been practicing the Ravensburger Waltz – the assigned dance pattern for the season – for the past few days, but it had not been going very well. Lily was not very fond of that pattern dance, and her and James's movements were still kind of clumsy and laboured, which was to be expected of such a new team, but it still frustrated Lily.

Just during that morning practice, Lily had stopped in the middle of the pattern and yelled at James for doing his double twizzle a beat too late. Later, she had actually felt bad about it, she blamed it on sleep deprivation. She'd been taking shifts at the diner almost every night that week to save up more money for costumes and travel expenses. James and Catherine had always worn lovely costumes, and tended to change them midseason occasionally, which Lily could not afford. And she was absolutely not having the conversation about why they couldn't get nice costumes with James. So, she resolved to start saving up now.

Grabbing shifts at the diner meant she did not have a spare second in the entire day. She left her house at 4:30 in the morning and wouldn't return until midnight. Usually, she tried to space out her shifts to only two or three a week. That way, she had time to breathe a few times.

Now that she had taken a much-needed nap, she realised how insane she must have seemed that morning. She had an image of Malcolm – Minerva's brother, Lily and James's co-coach – looking at her as if she was a wild animal while she yelled at James. Lily blushed at the thought, she usually would never do something like that in front of one of her coaches. She only hoped Malcolm hadn't told Minerva, because she wasn't as forgiving as her brother.

Lily heard the door open.

"Lily! Come on, get up, Minerva's here!" It was Mary.

Lily's eyes widened. "What time is it?"

"Five past three."

Lily got up quickly. "How'd you know I was here?"

"Dumbledore told me to make sure you woke up on time after he left you here."

Dumbledore was the nice old man who ran the rink. He was also the man who paid Lily more than he should for teaching learn to skate lessons every other day before her evening training session. He'd taken one look at her that day and insisted she forgo the lessons that day and go take a nap in his office. Lily had refused at first, and the fact that he said he'd still pay her for the day didn't make things much better, but Dumbledore had stood his ground, so she slept.

Now Lily followed Mary out into the main rink, she saw Minerva talking to James with a stern look on her face. Lily picked up her pace.

Minerva turned to look at Lily as she approached. The woman had a serious look on her face, more so than usual, Lily shrank internally.

Minerva glanced down at Lily's feet. "Where are your skates?"

Lily let out a tiny gasp. She face-palmed internally. "I'm sorry, I was distracted."

"Well, I was just telling James we will be changing our approach to the Ravensburger Waltz. You will do crossovers in whichever hold I instruct, and occasionally I will tell you a pattern dance, and you will perform each section of it twice." Minerva instructed.

Lily's eyes widened. Was Minerva serious? That sounded... intense. Lily was pretty sure she didn't remember every single step of every pattern dance off the top of her head. Why hadn't Minerva warned them yesterday?

"Now go put on your skates, you will be starting with a foxtrot hold." Minerva's tone was final.

Lily and James had spent twenty minutes doing crossovers, and Lily was starting to feel pretty stupid. Everyone else was doing lifts, and twizzles, and step sequences, and here she was stuck doing crossovers with James as if she'd just started learning to ice dance last week. She and James hadn't spoken much as Lily was trying to remember the steps to every single pattern dance she could think of.

As Mary and Tom's free dance music faded out, Minerva yelled out, "Lily, James, Dutch Waltz."

Lily heard a muffled snort coming from Mary, who was doing some choreographic steps a few metres away from where Lily was standing. Lily's eye twitched involuntarily. Had her coach– had her coach just ask her to dance to one of the easiest patterns in ice dance? One that eight-year-olds did?

James took Lily's hand. "Come on, the music's starting."

Lily and James skated over to one of the corners of the rink as the generic waltz music started. He didn't let go of her hand, Lily really wanted to drop his grip, but she knew Minerva was probably watching, and Lily didn't want to seem like a petulant child. At least she was wearing gloves, so she wouldn't catch any James-cooties.

"Why is she making us do this?" Lily asked as they smoothly went through the short pattern.

"Dunno." James seemed a little off.

It didn't even take them a minute to get through both sections of the pattern. Soon enough, their coach was yelling at them to get started on a Willow Waltz.

Lily cleared her throat as she and James went into a closed hold, face-to-face. "Listen," she avoided his eyes. "I'm sorry about this morning. I haven't been sleeping much, I was tired, and I shouldn't have yelled."

A crack of a smile appeared on James's lips. Lily held herself back from rolling her eyes.

"It's okay, Lily darling. It's not the first time I've been on the receiving end of your melodious shrieks."

Lily scoffed slightly. "I know, but we said we would be professional on the ice, and I plan on sticking to that."

"Wow, I can't believe after a week, I've been more professional than you."

"Shut up."

They finished the pattern, someone else's music came on, and they were instructed to go back to crossovers in hold.

"By the way, Minnie said that before we leave, we have to fill out our ISU biography cards so she can send them to British Ice Skating, and they can send them to the ISU."

A crease formed between Lily's brows. "Oh, right." Once their joint bios went up on the International Skating Union's website, there was no going back, this partnership would be on her skating record permanently, her name would be associated with James's forever.

"She also said we should start thinking about music for our programs. She said she'll start choreographing our short dance next week."

"Yes, about that. I thought we could each bring a few suggestions and see which songs we both like and go from there." Lily said.

"Alright, I guess."

Lily wanted to tell him to say it if he had a better idea, but she opted to stay quiet, she would not be the one starting a fight, even if technically it would've been him who started it with his passive-aggressive comments. So, yeah.

Eventually, Minerva started leveling them up in waltzes. Lily had forgotten the sheer amount of waltz patterns there existed. By the time they finally started doing the Ravensburger Waltz again, Lily definitely noticed the difference. She and James were both a lot less clumsy, and their hold was a lot easier.

When their session was over, Lily could not believe she had survived that long in such proximity to James. It actually hadn't been so bad, as long as he kept his mouth shut.

Now came the dreaded task of filling out their joint ISU biographies. It really wasn't that big of a deal, the International Skating Union – the governing body for figure skating internationally – kept a record of pretty much every skater who had ever competed internationally. For team disciplines, the bios were joined. Lily already had an ISU bio with Severus, and another one with John. They would never be updated or used again, really, but they were still out there on the internet.

Minerva had printed out the empty form for them to fill out by hand, which Minerva would then transcribe on her computer.

"Ladies first." James motioned to the paper.

"I'd rather not."

James sat down and took the pen. "What? You don't want me to see what your hobbies are?"

Lily scoffed and sat down next to him. He filled out his information pretty quickly, then turned it over to her.

Lily stared at the paper. At the top of the page, it read: Lily EVANS GBR, then beneath, James POTTER GBR. No going back now.

Most of the information was pretty basic, Lily had no trouble filling it out, date of birth, place of birth, hometown, height. James had made her feel self-conscious about what to write under hobbies. She very briefly glanced down to see what James had written down for his hobbies. Having fun, annoying Lily, playing hockey. Ugh. Lily wrote down her usual answer: watching movies and hiking.

"Should we get joint social media accounts?"

Lily narrowed her eyes at James. "Absolutely not."

Lily started filling out the joint section with their training information. "Who are your previous coaches?"

"Eufemia Potter."

Lily knew this already, but she would never admit it to James. "Okay, the only thing left to fill in is the music for Short and Free Dances."

James leaned in to see the sheet. "What'd you put fo choreographer?"

"Well, Minerva and Malcolm, who else?"

Did he want to get choreography from an outside source? Lily felt her stomach drop. Choreographers were expensive, and they would probably have to travel outside of the country, which also cost money.

"I meant to ask you if you would be willing to go to America and get our free dance choreographed by Marina Zoueva?"

Lily tensed. Her heart almost stopped. She turned to James and searched his face, was he serious? Lily opened her mouth, but all that came out was blubber of "ah - oh - um. " She cleared her throat. "How much would that cost, though? Because I hadn't contemplated a trip to America in my expenses for the season, and I don't know if my parents would be okay with that."

"But apart from costs, would you want to get choreography from her?"

Lily almost laughed in his face. "Yes, that would be amazing. But I don't think it would be wise to spend all our money on it."

"Well, we'd only have to pay for the program itself and the flight there and back. I talked to one of the skaters I know in Canton, and she said she could host us while we were there." James paused, unsure. "And... you know, my parents offered to pay for everything for both of us already."

Lily couldn't help the grimace that overcame her face. "I don't think I would be comfortable with that. Why don't you let me consult with my parents, and I'll get back to you."

Lily laid on her bedroom floor, her head was starting to hurt after listening to waltzes for the past hour. She wrote down her thoughts on the piece she was listening to on her notebook. "What'd you think of that one, Mary?"

Mary did not answer.

"Mary?" Lily turned to look at her friend, who was sitting back on the bed. Mary was fast asleep. Lily quickly pressed the space bar on her laptop and proceeded to throw a cushion at her friend.

Mary let out a shriek. "I'm up! I'm up!"

"Sure, you are. I guess I don't have to ask for your opinion on that one."

"Face it, Lily, the overwhelming majority of waltzes are pretty boring. Just choose whichever, and the choreography will make it better. I mean, look at Tessa and Scott, Valse Triste is a snoozefest and look what they did with it."

Lily groaned. "Yeah, but James and I are literally nowhere near their level, even from back when they did Valse Triste. We need a strong music choice."

"I think you should stop thinking so hard about it, maybe James has some actually good suggestions, and you will have stressed over nothing."

Lily chuckled drily. "Yeah, I'm not counting on that."

Mary gave her friend a look. "Why are you being so pessimistic about James? He's changed a lot since last season, you've seen it."

Lily scowled. "I know, but I can't just ignore all the years that he tormented Severus."

"Okay, but you do remember that Snape ended up taking all his anger at James and Sirius on you?"

Lily was hoping Mary wouldn't bring that up. "I know, but it still doesn't excuse all the horrible things they did to Severus."

"Well, I know some of their pranks went a little overboard. Like when they somehow tied his laces together without him noticing and he faceplanted on the ice. That was pretty mean, you don't mess with a person's skates. And the whole Snivellus nickname they started was a bit much, but that was a while ago, and they still do pranks, but I haven't seen them do anything of the sort to anyone for a while."

Lily side-eyed Mary. "Yeah, because Severus left, and he was always their main victim."

"Uh well, yeah, I guess. But I genuinely don't think they'd still be as bad to Snape if he were still here." Mary turned on her side so she could look at her friend better. "Besides, you weren't here when Catherine left, James was pretty depressed for a couple of weeks. I think he's sobered up a lot since then."

Lily looked down at her hands. "Mhm. I guess."

"Plus, he hasn't asked you out in like months."

"Yeah, but he still flirts incessantly."

"Well, yeah, Lily. But have you considered that you tend to flirt back?" Mary said with a bit of caution.

Lily let out a small gasp. "I do not."

"Besides, flirting is James's mother tongue, he flirts with almost everyone he encounters. And honestly, I think it's kind of cute that he's had a crush on you for like two years now."

"He doesn't have a crush on me, he barely even knows me."

"Okay, but he does like you... generally, as a person. That's undeniable. So, maybe for the sake of your partnership, you could try to start anew with him. Just treat him as if you've never met before. No prejudices. I know it'll be hard, and I'm not saying you have to become best friends with him, but I know you want this partnership to be successful, and you know this will be best for it."

Lily sighed slowly. Mary was right. Lily could tend to be very set in her views and didn't change her opinion on people easily. But she knew she had to try and get along with James if their partnership was to last longer than a week. "Alright. I guess I could try to treat him like anyone else." Lily said gingerly. "But that doesn't mean I admit he's changed!" She quickly added.

Mary chuckled. "Sure, Lils."

"Now, will you help me choose a freaking waltz? I think at this point I might just go for Blue Danube."

Mary groaned and burrowed further into her pillow. "Maybe we should sleep on it." she pulled back the covers to allow space for Lily to lay down.

Lily shut her laptop, and reluctantly joined Mary. It was late, after all. She pulled the covers to her chin and turned to look at Mary. "So, what do you think about the whole Marina thing?"

"Well, I get why you don't want to take his offer up, but, Lily, think about it. You'd be passing on a Marina Zoueva program. And you know, partners may come and go, seasons may pass, but Marina Zoueva programs? Marina Zoueva programs are forever."

Lily chuckled. Her heart swelled at the thought of skating to a program choreographed by Marina Zoueva herself. Lily turned to express her agreement to her friend, but she'd fallen asleep again.

"We are not skating to Romeo and Juliet." Lily could feel her ears going red in anger. Did he seriously think she'd agree to that?

Lily and James sat on the stands looking out to the ice. They had just had a ballet lesson, and now they needed to put together a shortlist of music preferences for their short dance before their afternoon session with Minerva started.

They were sitting close together, sharing earbuds. Lily tried to avoid touching James's leg with hers, but it was pretty hard.

"We could totally pull it off! I can picture us now, you dying in my arms at the end of the program."

Lily scoffed. "I didn't include this in our conditions, but I am never dying at the end of a program, and neither are you." It was more or less a trend in skating programs.

"What about Virtue and Moir's Carmen style?"

A small smile crept onto Lily's lips. "Okay, you can die, but only if I kill you."

James grinned. "Deal."

"Okay, now that we've got that cleared up," Lily took James's phone. "What about Coppelia?"

Lily played a bit of it.

"Uh, don't you think it's a little, you know... basic?"

Lily narrowed her eyes at James. "What does that even mean?"

"Well, everyone's skating to the same five soft, melodic classical pieces this season, and I think it would be good to do something different," James explained. "I thought maybe we could do Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, it fits the tempo."

Lily's jaw clenched. "I get it, but I don't think it's a very good idea to do something too out of the box on our very first season together. Maybe once we've built a reputation."

"What about Moon River?" James suggested.

"Mmm, maybe. The Nutcracker?"

James grimaced. "The Game of Thrones theme? That's classical."

"It's not that I'm against doing something different, I just don't want to do something too out of the box." Lily tried to explain.

"Uh, okay. So that's a no to Game of Thrones?"

Lily shrugged. "I... don't know." She looked at her wristwatch. "Our ice time is about to start. We can discuss it with Minerva later. Come on."

Lily quickly shoved her phone in her pocket and stood up. She felt James's hand loop around her wrist, stopping her from walking away. She turned to him.

"Have you thought about the Canton thing?"

Lily looked down at her feet. "Um."

Truth was she had discussed it with her parents, and they were willing to accept James's offer to pay for the trip, but only if they met James's parents first, and Lily had some very complicated feelings about this situation, she only knew she had to figure out a way to avoid her and James's parents meeting.

"How about I give you an answer by Friday, and in the meantime, we figure out our short dance music?"

James thought for a moment. "Deal."

Lily smiled slightly. "Let's go before Minerva comes up here and gets us."