AN: Hello, I would just like to say that I'M SORRY, I know I said I'd try to upload more but literally right after I uploaded the last chapter my teachers decided that it was time for online classes and cramming us with as much work as humanly possible. But, yeah, here it is.

Tessa Jane McCormick Virtue (born May 17, 1989, in London, Ontario) and Scott Patrick Moir (born September 2, 1987, in London, Ontario) are Canadian ice dancers. They are the 2010 Olympic champions, the 2014 Olympic silver medallists, two-time world champions (2010, 2012) and six-time Canadian champions (2008 - 2010, 2012 - 2014). They are the youngest ice dance team to win Olympic gold and the most decorated Canadian ice dancers of all time. And the Arctic Edge Ice Arena was the place where they trained for the last ten years. Lily wasn't kidding herself; she knew Tessa and Scott weren't in Canton, and her chances of running into them were slim to none, especially after the whole Sochi fiasco, which had ended with both of them taking an indefinite break from competition and subsequently moving back to Canada. Lily did not like to talk about it.

Although Lily didn't hold any false hopes, it still felt pretty cool to be in the very place where Tessa and Scott had trained for their many titles and where they had created so many iconic programs alongside Marina.

Lily felt a chill run down her spine as she entered the arena and the first thing she saw was the 2010 Olympics banner. Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir. Gold medallists. That sounded good as hell, even five years later.

Lily and James were about a half-hour early because of Lily's paranoia of being late, but it gave her some time to look around and settle her nerves.

Lily and James were lacing up their skates sitting side by side while debating what lifts they wanted to integrate into their free dance when Lily caught a flash of red hair by the doors. She was a little embarrassed at her split-second reaction as she looked up to see Marina standing there.

Lily finished tying her skates and debated with herself if they should go talk to Marina now or wait until the time they had agreed on meeting at.

Before Lily could finish battling with herself, James had gotten up and walked over to Marina.

Lily was about to freak out when she saw Marina smile warmly at James as she shook his hand. James waved Lily over.

Lily took a deep breath and introduced herself to Marina in the steadiest voice she could manage.

"It's very nice to meet you both. Minerva has spoken wonders about the two of you."

Lily felt herself go red. She'd nearly forgotten Marina and Minerva were contemporaries and old friends.

"Have you thought about your music options?" Marina asked in her thick Russian accent.

"Uh, yes, we thought Holst's The Planets could be good, or maybe a ballet. Tchaikovsky or Minkus maybe." Stop saying maybe, Lily.

Marina considered them for a moment. Lily tried not to squirm under Marina's gaze as she took a step back and looked her and James up and down. Lily stood up straighter.

After a few agonising seconds, Marina spoke again. "I've seen you skate, you're not ready for that yet."

Lily's breath caught. "You've seen us skate?"

"Minerva sent me some videos."

Lily's eyes widened. She knew Minerva had filmed her and James a few times, but she'd thought those videos were for Minerva's eyes only. Lily desperately tried to remember the content of said videos, but she could not for the life of her remember. "Well, we'd thought maybe we could do something like... well Umbrellas of Cherbourg."

Lily could feel her heart thudding at the mention of Umbrellas of Cherbourg. She'd told herself she wouldn't bring up Virtue and Moir in front of Marina, but so far Marina's expression did not give anything away. She simply said, "Tessa and Scott had a special connection from the very beginning, you don't have that yet. That program was about two kids in love, you think you can interpret something like that?"

Lily looked down at her feet, a blush creeping up her neck. "Probably not."

"And that's okay, it'll come with time. I think you are both very... aggressive skaters, which gave me an idea."

A trickle of hope sparked in Lily's chest. When she saw the glint in Marina's eyes, she knew she was in for a Marina Zoueva masterpiece.

Lily and James spent the rest of the day showing Marina the lifts they thought were good for their program.

"Practice that last curve lift," Marina instructed as she was called away to check on one of her teams.

Lily gulped, did Marina have to like that lift specifically?

"Come on, Lils," James took her wrist and led her to an empty spot on the ice.

Lily had noticed James only ever seem to take her by the wrist, not the hand, which was probably for her own benefit since she was visibly uncomfortable holding James's hand most of the time. She felt a little bad James had noticed it but she was relieved he hadn't actually said anything.

James bent down onto a Besti squat and nodded at Lily to go ahead.

Lily's issue with this lift was stupid. She knew this, which is why she kept her mouth shut about it to everyone but her friends. As a matter of fact, Lily quite liked this lift, in theory. In practice, she had one glaring issue.

This particular lift consisted of Lily basically doing a handstand with her hands on each of James's lower thighs. Which meant Lily had nowhere to stare at but James's crotch.

The first time they had tried it off the ice, Lily had tried to avert her eyes, but there wasn't anywhere else to look really without bending her neck, and she had ended up losing her balance on the exit and toppling over. So she had resigned herself to the five seconds she came face to - well - dick with James. She shuddered internally at the thought.

So, as cool as the lift looked, Lily had hoped Marina didn't end up liking it enough for the program.

Thankfully, they only had to do it twice before Marina returned.

"Let me see that stationary lift again."

Lily and James complied. Lily actually couldn't decide if this lift, where they were face to face and she had to look at his eyes was worse than the crotch lift.

As Lily and James finished, they could see a thoughtful expression on Marina's face, they both waited quietly for her thoughts.

"Okay, there's something that I need you both to understand," Marina said. "Technically, this is a great lift, difficult entry and exit, impeccable positions on Lily's part, and James is completely stationary on the ice. But you need to understand that not just because you're performing an element does that mean that you can stop performing your program, you must remain connected and immersed in the program at all times."

Lily lowered her eyes. She knew all this, but hearing Marina calling them out on it was a little embarrassing.

"First of all," Marina continued. "James, you must do something with your hands, you can't just leave them limp next to you, at least stroke her hair. And Lily, I can tell you're looking at an invisible spot above James's head instead of into his eyes. You two are a team, as long as you're on the ice, you are not two separate entities, you are one. You must be in sync with each other, know the other's movements as you do yours. You need to convey a feeling of union."

Lily bit her lip but nodded quickly. Yeah, it was not going to be easy to figure out how to do all that with James freaking Potter.

Marina had Lily and James perform the lift again, taking her observations into account.

Lily knew it wasn't going to be easy to convey a feeling of union with James, but the least she could do at the moment was actually look into his eyes for five seconds. Actually, as long as he kept his mouth shut, looking into his eyes wasn't that bad.

James ran his hands over her hair all the way down to her sides, his touch barely a whisper over Lily's body. Lily knew that looked much better than what he had been doing before, but she never would've told him to do that.

After that, they ran through their step sequences for the program. One of the reasons Lily liked Marina so much as a choreographer was all the skating in-hold she included in programs, which some people truly didn't appreciate as much nowadays.

Lily was not anticipating the level of difficulty Marina would go for in their steps, she seemed to trust them beyond their abilities. Lily didn't know whether to be grateful or scared.

Lily wasn't entirely sure where she was when she woke up. She could see the night's sky and a dim street light at a weird angle. She straightened up, her neck sore from the awkward position she'd fallen asleep in.

She tried not to freak out once she realised she was in a strange car. She heard the door open and James's voice drifted in. "Hey, look who's awake."

James helped her out of the car, and said something to the driver through the car window before they drove off.

As they walked into the house, Lily turned to James. "What time is it?"

"Around midnight."

Lily's eyes widened. "Wow. You called an Uber?"

"No, that was Marina's son, Fyodor, she asked him to drive us home."

Lily blushed. She hadn't recognised Marina's son, she hadn't even acknowledged him when she got out of the car. Fuck, she hoped Marina wouldn't think she was rude.

"You want to eat? Alison said she'd leave something for us in the oven."

Lily wanted nothing but to go to bed, but she could not ignore the hollow in her stomach. "Uh, sure."

"Why don't you go sit on the couch? I'll heat up the food and bring it over."

Lily still couldn't get used to James being nice to her. "We can't eat on Alison's couch."

"She always does it. I'm sure she won't mind."

Lily was too tired to argue, so she just went over to the living room couch and sat.

A light bulb suddenly flashed in Lily's head. She dug her phone out of her skate bag and looked at the time. 12:18. She couldn't believe she'd almost forgotten about Mary.

Mary and her partner Thomas were competing on the Junior Grand Prix in Poland this week, and Lily had done the time conversions before leaving for America, and she was pretty sure Mary and Thomas were skating their short dance in a few minutes.

Lily turned the TV on to YouTube and sighed in relief once she realised Mary's warmup group was still on the ice.

"Oh shit, are Mary and Thomas going on right now?"

James had finally gotten to the living room, two plates of lasagna in hand.

Lily's stomach growled. "Yeah. Gimme."

James sat down beside Lily and handed her a plate. "What's the starting order?"

"No idea."

Lily and James watched the last few minutes of the warmup in silence.

The first couple on the ice was not Mary and Thomas, usually Lily would be up for watching a competition, but tonight she just wanted to get it over with. She ate her lasagna in silence as she watched.

"They're good."

Lily hummed in response. "They're Russians, they tend to be good."

James chuckled. "Yeah, I guess. The Starlight Waltz is quite a nice pattern."

Lily took a second to answer. "Any waltz is better than the Ravensburger Waltz."

"We should go over the Starlight Waltz soon, in case we get sent to Junior Worlds, for some reason."

Lily frowned. "Don't even say that."

James shrugged. "Why not? I mean, we're both age-eligible and I think we'd have a decent chance at a medal."

"Well, yeah, but if we get sent to Junior Worlds that means we probably won't get sent to Euros and Worlds, and I'd rather get sent to both than to one plus Junior Worlds."

"Okay, you're right, I swear I will never mention Junior Worlds in front of you again."

Lily ignored James's snark and turned back to the screen. "That's a pretty good score. I'm pretty sure Mary and Thomas's season's best in the short dance is somewhere along those lines."

James turned to look at Lily. "Do you know all your friends' season's bests?"

Lily raised a brow. "You don't?"

James frowned. "Well, no."

"Not even Sirius's?"

"I feel like it might be in the hundred and eighties."

"161."

"Okay, but to be fair, I don't think he knows it."

Lily shushed James as Mary and Thomas took the ice and their music began. Lily actually quite liked this program, it was set to the music from the movie Up, which was different from their usual modern style, but Lily would always admire teams who showed versatility.

James winced. "Oof, Mary's closed Mohawk edge looked borderline."

Lily side-eyed James. "How are you awake enough right now to make real-time edge calls?"

James shrugged. "I see a pattern, I over-analyse the shit out of it."

Lily felt something flutter in her stomach. That's hot. Lily almost wanted to kick her own brain for thinking such a thing.

"I'm pretty sure they got all the key points but that one, hopefully, this will be a lenient panel. But I think the tech score will be pretty high." James said as Mary and Thomas finished.

Lily nodded once. "God forbid they actually give them PCS though."

James scoffed. "I know! I swear sometimes I think these judges wouldn't recognise skating skills is they skated right over their faces."

Lily chuckled. She loved her sport, but sometimes the politics involved could be really frustrating. And the fact that most of the judges and officials were old white people did not help. Not only were Mary and Thomas from a small federation (which tended to make judges not so willing to dish out the best scores since small federation = less money to give to the ISU), but they were also not white, which sometimes elicited completely unjustified opinions about them not being 'refined' or 'elegant' enough, which meant their Program Component Scores (or PCS) were often lower than expected.

Lily wished more than anything that her friends would get the scores and medals they deserved, and she knew both Mary and Thomas worked ten times harder to achieve half the success some of the teams they competed against did.

Soon enough, the scores came in. 58.28. They were currently in second place with four teams left to skate.

Lily glared at the TV screen. "Are you fucking kidding me? 26 PCS? There's literally no reason why they should be getting anything less than 28. I want to see those protocols, and I swear to god if the Russians got higher PCS..."

"I mean, they got a season's best, and they look happy." James tried to calm Lily down.

"Yeah, that's good, but I still think they deserve better."

"Oh they absolutely do, but we can't really do much about it at the moment, so let's just be happy for them."

Lily hummed. "Well, I'm gonna text Mary and go to bed, I am absolutely beat. Are you gonna keep watching?"

James nodded. "Yeah, I'm gonna check out some of these teams' waltzes, I'm kind of curious about that closed Choctaw, I doubt anyone will get that key point, really."

"Okay." Lily got up and tried not to think about how hot it was when James went all technical expert on her as she left the room. What the hell was wrong with her?

The next couple of days passed in a breeze. Lily and James spent most of their time at the rink going over the program, especially since their music cut had been finished. Lily wanted to practice and get as comfortable with their program before they left since she didn't want to offend Marina by changing something once they were back in England.

The music Marina had suggested probably would not have gone over as well with Lily if suggested by literally anyone else. Lily liked the music, but if it was anyone else choreographing the program she would have flat out refused to skate it in fear that it would look tacky. But Lily trusted Marina with her life, so Pirates of the Caribbean it was.

Once the program had been done, Lily had actually been giddy with excitement. A well-done Pirates of the Caribbean program was rare, but she fucking had one. It was already her favourite program she'd ever done (taking the title from her Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence free dance with Severus), which she had not been expecting to happen when she'd partnered up with James.

Lily found that she actually didn't mind skating with James that much when it was their free dance, mostly because since the music was so intense, they didn't have to act like they were in love or some shit like that. In fact, they didn't even have to act like they liked each other. Which, Lily realised now was probably Marina's intention all along. That woman was a fucking genius.

Lily watched James run through their step sequence by himself as she took a water break at the boards. It was a bit awkward without her there since most of it was done in-hold, but he made it work. Lily felt a lurch in her stomach as she watched him do an open Mohawk that was so perfect she could have cried. Oh control yourself, please.

"He's good."

Lily almost choked on her water as Marina came up beside her quietly. She nodded.

"I have a feeling you don't get told this enough, but you are also very good, and you two are perfectly matched, you might not think you can keep up with him, but you absolutely can, I've seen you do it. Hold your head up high, and know your worth," Marina said. "You are one of those rare people who you can tell loves skating just by watching them on the ice, it's honestly incredible to see. That amount of passion and love in every stroke draws people in, makes them pay attention, and that is one of your greatest advantages. Use it."

Lily could barely control the tears from falling. How had Marina fucking Zoueva just said that to her? She didn't want her voice to break so she just smiled and nodded vehemently.

Marina put a hand on Lily's shoulder. "Also, just as a suggestion, maybe for your exhibition program you could try something more soft and lyrical like what you wanted originally. It's your chance to experiment."

Lily's brows raised in surprise. She hadn't even thought about getting an exhibition program. Exhibition galas meant going to a major championship and getting an invitation to participate in the gala. Did Marina really have that much faith in them? She felt like crying again. "Oh, yeah, that'd be a good idea."

"What are you ladies talking about?" James approached them, with a smile on his face. He was in a good mood.

Marin turned to him. "Oh James, good, you're here. I wanted to give you both some last few pointers since today is our last session."

James nodded and stood beside Lily.

They both listened as Marina talked about certain lifts and choreographic moments. Lily tried to absorb every word and imprint it into her brain so she wouldn't forget. She felt tempted to go and get her notebook to write all of this down, but she knew James would not keep quiet about her nerdiness.

"And you must tell me your competition schedule when you settle it. If we coincide at a competition I'd quite like to sit with you on the Kiss and Cry."

Lily's heart almost stopped. Marina wanted to sit on the Kiss and Cry with them? That would literally be a dream come true. Although it would probably be stressful as fuck too since Lily could not imagine getting a bad score with Marina sitting right there. She smiled widely, nonetheless. "That would be great! We'll definitely let you know."

"Now come here." Marina pulled them both into a hug.

There, crushed into a bear hug by Marina Zoueva, Lily decided she could officially deem this Canton trip a success.