AN: Fun fact, I actually low-key work for ice-dance dot com, who are mentioned in this chapter, and we don't really do video interviews but for the sake of this story, we will ! If my boss is reading this, please don't, that would be super embarrassing for me😭😭😭. The journalist from the site is definitely fictional tho.

Also thanks for the reviews I've gotten lately, you have no idea how much I appreciate them ! and noDownSide, I don't have any set face-claims for either James or Lily, but for James I tend to lean towards Xavier Serrano, you should check out his instagram if u can, that is A Man.

"You cannot get married to that man, Petunia!"

Lily hadn't had a yelling match like this with her sister in a while.

They stood in the living room, facing each other while their mum sat on the sofa looking absolutely done with them.

"Well, you can't tell me what to do, Lily!"

"He's an ass, Petunia. Not to mention a bigot and kind of sexist! You really want to get married to a man like that?"

Petunia scoffed. "Just because he has conservative values doesn't mean he's a bigot! You're just jealous I found someone and I'm making a life for myself outside of that stupid sport!"

Lily was fuming at this point. "Petunia. I have always supported you making a life outside of the sport because that's what you wanted but is marriage really the way to do it, I mean, you're twenty years old, what are you, a child bride?"

Petunia's eyes rolled so far back to the back of her head, Lily thought they'd get stuck that way. "Oh, I knew it! I knew it all along! You wanted me to get out of skating but now I'm not allowed to do anything you might not approve of!"

"I did not say that, Petunia! And that is not what's happening here." Lily turned to her mother, hoping for some interference. "Mum! Are you seriously going to let her do this? Aren't you the one who's supposed to say she's going to ruin her life getting married to some rando at this age?"

Mrs Evans sighed deeply. She stood. "Of course I wish she would wait a little longer to get married because you're both still babies in my eyes, but I can't stop your sister from making her own decisions." She moved away from them. "Now, I need to make myself a cuppa, you girls are giving me a headache."

Lily felt slightly guilty as her mum went into the kitchen. But she just couldn't stay quiet about this. It seemed to her as if her sister was going down a road she couldn't come back from.

Petunia was currently looking smug as shit. "I'm getting married, Lily. Whether you like it or not. And I am finally getting out of this house."

That stung a little, admittedly. Lily pinched the bridge of her nose, ready for this argument to be over, it was getting late and she was leaving for Hungary early tomorrow morning. "You know, Petunia, I only want —"

The words died in her throat as a loud crash came from the kitchen, followed by a heavy thud.

Lily ran to the kitchen to find her mother sprawled out on the floor, clearly unconscious, the tea kettle beside her. Lily dropped to her knees and shook her mum's shoulders gently. "Mum? Mum?" She bent down to check if she could feel her breath. She could, if faintly. "Petunia, dial 999!"

Petunia had entered the kitchen now. The horror-stricken look on her face was the most emotion Lily had seen her sister show in a while.

With shaky hands, Petunia dug her phone out of her pocket and dialled.

Lily was holding back tears. "Mum, please please wake up." She had no clue how to do any sort of first aid. She just cradled her mother's head on her lap and prayed to whoever could hear.

The next twenty-four hours happened very quickly.

Lily's mother had been fine. Well, not fine, it turned out her blood pressure had been dangerously low, which had led to her feeling weak and then having a dizzy spell and passing out. She was going to have to take some medicine for it and get testing done. She'd also gotten a bad bruise on her hip from falling on it. But, ultimately, she was okay. Back to her normal self by the next morning.

Obviously though, Lily had been reluctant to leave for her early Monday morning flight. Her mum had spent the night at the hospital for observation, and the woman had actually tried to get Mr Evans to drive Lily to the airport when she'd woken up in the morning.

But Lily had already called James to tell him what happened. Just hearing his voice had made her feel a lot better. He'd wanted to go to the hospital right away and was fully willing to withdraw from the competition, but after talking to her parents and to Minerva, they'd decided she'd still go, she'd just get there a little late.

Lily spent the entirety of Monday looking after her mum after being discharged from the hospital in the morning. Mrs Evans did not want to be looked after though. They'd at least gotten her to take it easy for the day.

Lily and Petunia had also called an unspoken truce. They also knew that their father would be on their necks if they did anything to even remotely stress their mum out.

Lily was in Hungary by Tuesday morning. She did feel bad, leaving her mum for a week after what happened but she'd gotten some comfort in seeing that she had seemed completely fine for the past day. But there had been no way her mum was letting her not come, either way.

Lily had only missed the first day of official practices and arrived with two days to spare from their event.

She didn't see James until she got to the rink. Minerva had told him to wait there until Lily arrived.

Lily went out into the main area of the rink and finished taping up her skates. There were five couples on the ice. Plus James by himself. Lily smiled as she noticed Mary and Thomas on the ice. She waved at them. Mary grinned in return and waved excitedly.

James stepped out of the ice and walked towards Lily. She stood up.

He looked her up and down as if making sure she was still whole. "Hey, you okay?"

Lily nodded with a small smile.

"And your mum...?"

"Alright. It was just kind of scary, for me mostly," Lily admitted.

"Yeah, I'd imagine." He set a hand on her arm. "I'm here if you need absolutely anything, you know that, right? However you might feel... today or throughout the week, I understand. I just want you to be okay and comfortable and happy, everything else comes second."

Lily suddenly felt like she might cry. Ugh, she was so pathetic. She threw her arms around James's neck in a hug and took a deep breath. Why did he have to be so caring and thoughtful and amazing — it, it wasn't fair. To her heart. To make her feel this way. He rubbed her back comfortingly and she buried her forehead in the crook of his neck. This wasn't fair either. How safe she felt in his arms, how cared for. How right it felt. How her heart expanded more than she'd ever thought to be humanly possible. "I —" But she didn't say it. She couldn't. But she hoped he knew.

She pulled away from him, finally. "We should go practice."

It seemed ridiculous how much she'd missed James. She only hadn't seen him for two days, but it seemed like a lot longer. She'd been stressed and worried during those two days. First with Petunia's marriage news, then with her mum. But on the ice now, in James's arms, she felt... lighter. Like she knew things would be alright. Like he made everything better. God, she was turning into a sap.

They only had a couple of minutes to warm up before their music started playing. It almost caught Lily off guard. She hadn't even fully recovered from her little moment with James and she was expected to skate a full Starlight Waltz just like that?

She did it though. She didn't want Minerva to think something was wrong.

Halfway through the dance, Lily noticed James getting that look in his eyes he sometimes got. It didn't freak her out as it once had, but it definitely made her feel things.

Suddenly, without warning, James's words from not even a week ago rang in her ears. Of course I still like you, how could I not?

He looked at her with those intense hazel eyes filled with such... passion, such feeling, as he dipped her slowly for their ending pose, and he must have realised by now what he did to her when he looked at her that way.

Therefore, Lily was not responsible for her following actions.

Having James's face in such proximity to hers had obviously been a dangerous move all along. Lily had no idea how she'd been able to hold herself back all these months doing this same bit of choreography time and time again. She was sure James's face had gotten closer than what it usually did though. And he couldn't just do that! What the fuck! It ended up placing his lips in an extremely close distance to hers. Those five inches seemed to be taunting her! And so, without thinking, Lily lifted her head slightly and placed a kiss on James's lips.

She had no idea a kiss so soft could be so... Earth-shattering. It was chaste, as far as kisses went, but there was something intimate and even sultry about the way James's lips brushed against hers, returning the same soft kiss.

It lasted only a few seconds. Lily was afraid her legs might not hold her up once James let go of her but she managed. Being out of his embrace sadly also meant that Lily remembered that they were very much not alone on the ice. The rest of the teams on the ice seemed to not have been paying attention to them, only Mary and Thomas had seemed to have noticed something had happened. Mary was grinning like a madwoman.

Lily looked over to Minerva. She did not seem pleased. Lily didn't want to go over to her, but it seemed like that was where James was leading her.

Lily didn't even touch James as they skated over to the boards. She needed to get herself in check. But she feared the warmth in her stomach wouldn't go away if James was still in the room.

"Minerva, I'm so sorry, that was – we didn't..." Lily started saying as soon as they reached the boards.

Minerva held up a hand. "We'll discuss your unprofessionalism later. Now we're going to have to act as if that is now part of your choreography. Although Lord knows I would never choreograph something so tacky."

Lily blushed. "Surely no one really noticed though."

Minerva lowered her voice. "Well, the photographers definitely noticed."

Lily followed Minerva's gaze to see the four people poised with cameras at the short end of the rink. Fuck. She'd forgotten there would be photographers during practice. The other competitions they'd attended that season had been much smaller events and even though there had been photographers, there hadn't been any in the practices. God, she was so stupid.

She had no idea what had possessed her to do that. And James's silence wasn't doing wonders for her nerves.

Her dumb brain was stuck on one thing now though. She'd get to kiss James every time they skated their short dance.

Lily found that she quite enjoyed kissing James. Like, really, really enjoyed it. She wished they had run through the entire program more than twice before the Short Dance event but she wasn't about to suggest another run-thru.

Mary had gotten the few pictures of the kiss incredibly quickly, which had resulted in their girls group chat pretty much exploding. Lily firmly stuck to the story that it had been added to the choreography last minute. None of her friends believed her.

James had tried to talk to her about it later that day, but Lily had very quickly changed the subject, and he hadn't tried again. Lily felt bad. He was obviously confused by her actions, but she didn't have a very good explanation as to why she'd done it. It had been an amalgamation of things. She just had to, at that moment.

Lily wasn't usually much for public displays of affection, so at first, the idea of kissing at the end of the program had freaked her out (her desire to kiss James again won out though), but the World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Debrecen, Hungary weren't exactly the most well-attended event in the world. Especially not the ice dance event during the fourth group out of eight. So, only about fifty people or so were in the audience when they went out for their short dance.

It was perfect. Lily was absolutely over the moon. They were in second place, and for a pattern they had barely practiced for a month or so, that was pretty damn good.

She called her Mum at least twice a day and things seemed to be okay at home, Mrs Evans was incredibly happy for Lily and that made Lily happy in return.

The day of the free dance, Lily tried not to think about what medalling — or better yet, winning — here meant for her. It would be her first major championship medal, it would raise their (currently very low) world standing significantly, it would give them a name. They'd be a team to watch out for, that people knew.

Lily wrapped her arms around James as they waited for their turn to skate. They were going last, which had its advantages and its disadvantages. They had to wait the longest after warming up, over thirty minutes, and the ice would be at its most skated on condition on their turn. But it also wasn't unusual for the judges to start dishing out more and more points towards the end. Because the very best were supposed to skate last. And it was the moment in the evening when they were most willing to give out high marks.

Plus, Lily liked being able to know the final results just as she finished skating, not having to wait around for other people to skate and see if they beat your score.

James rubbed Lily's arm. "We can do this, kiddo. I believe in you."

Lily smiled. "I believe in you too."

"Let's go show them."

The moment the music started and James pulled her into his arms, Lily stopped thinking about the title, about how unbelievable it would be to win a junior world title on their first season together, about how good of an omen it would be for their future career together. In that moment it was just the two of them, together against the world.

It was pretty good. That was the only thing Lily could think of as their dance came to an end and they got off the ice. She felt fairly confident that it was enough but she didn't want to jinx it. It had been good, but she couldn't know for sure just yet. James took her hand as they headed to the Kiss & Cry. Lily was grateful.

It felt like James's hand was the only thing anchoring her to reality as the replays played on the little screen. Lily always found small mistakes when she watched the slo-mo replays of her performances and she genuinely tried to stop but she couldn't look away from the screen.

Fuck, she had totally hopped the rocker on their Diagonal Step Sequence, how could she let that happen?

Lily intertwined her fingers with James's and squeezed his hand. With her other hand she had a death grip on a unicorn plushie someone had thrown on the ice.

Oh God, they'd gotten too far apart on their second set of twizzles, they might as well just get minus threes across the board.

The replays were suddenly gone and now the screen showed her, James and Minerva live. Lily looked up to the camera that was recording them and waved. Gosh, she looked constipated. She averted her eyes.

James also waved and quickly said something in Spanish. Probably saying hello to his little cousins in Chile.

"Lily Evans and James Potter of Great Britain have earned in the free dance... ninety-nine point seventy points, which is a new season's best. Their total competition score is of... one hundred and sixty-seven point twelve points and they are currently in... first place."

Lily's breath caught in her throat. She brought a hand up to her mouth in shock. Her heart was beating too fast. What? "Oh my god," she said in a small voice. She looked at James with stars in her eyes. He was grinning at her.

He pulled her into his arms in the tightest hug and kissed the top of her head. "We did it, kiddo."

Lily felt tears stinging at her eyes. James let go of her and pulled her to her feet so that they could wave at the audience.

Lily fanned her eyes with her hand so her tears would dry and her mascara wouldn't run. God, she needed to control herself.

James ran a thumb through her cheek. "Don't do that to me, Lily. If you cry, I'll cry."

Lily laughed. A tear finally made its way down her cheek. James kissed her forehead and then her cheek. He pulled her back into a hug and Lily felt like she was on top of the world.

The rest of the night had passed in a flash. The medal ceremony had also been an extremely emotional affair for Lily. She had dreamed of getting an ISU championship medal for so long, with the blue, green and white striped ribbon and the lone feather on its shiny surface.

Then she'd had a long phone call with her mum, and James's parents had insisted on taking them out for dinner in Debrecen, which had been nice.

Lily had been right. People had definitely started noticing them after their win. She'd gotten an influx of very nice messages on social media and she had now talked to the media more times than what she had in her entire career.

The only sit-down interview they had time for was taking place in the morning, right before the gala rehearsal. In a private room in their hotel.

Lily's hands were cold. She sat straight on her chair next to James as the very nice journalist from ice-dance dot com sat across from them. A camera set up to record them.

As they started talking, Lily started relaxing as they spoke about their skating journey and the experience of getting choreography from Marina Zoueva

"So, you only teamed up this season, but you knew each other before, right?"

Lily tugged at her hair. "Yeah, since we were around eleven when we both started skating with Minerva's group."

"Funnily enough, I actually used to have a bit of a crush on her when we were twelve or thirteen," James said in an amused tone.

Anne, the interviewer, raised her brows in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah, I actually wrote her a very cheesy valentine card once."

"Did she accept it?"

"She didn't." James mock-pouted.

"Aw."

"Yeah, I think I was just scared," Lily said with a laugh. She had no idea where she was pulling out this joke-y tone from because she was mortified on the inside.

"Hey, and now you get to kiss her on your Short Dance!" Anne said.

James smiled. "Thirteen-year-old me would be so proud."

"Funny coincidence there."

"Yup."

The subject was thankfully changed then, letting Lily take a breath.

"Despite being such a young new team, you have achieved some truly impressive results already. What routine do you follow?"

James sat up straighter. "Well, Lily is easily the most hard-working person I have ever met. She's the one who inspires me to strive for greatness and train not only hard but smart. She's truly the reason for the success we've had."

Lily had never willed her skin to remain its regular colour as much as at that moment. You will not blush at things James Potter says on camera, Evans, YOU WILL NOT! "I think he deserves some credit too. He lifts me up every day, both literally and figuratively."

Anne laughed and Lily felt validated. "What do you like most about skating with each other?"

James quickly took the lead in answering. Lily felt herself tense up slightly. "Lily's dedication to her craft makes me want to be better. She's a skater that... you can tell she's passionate about what she does every time she steps on the ice, the way that she lays it all out on the ice, the moments that she creates, the way that she emotes with all she has... you can't help but attempt to match her energy. I've always loved skating... but since I started skating with her, that love has been reinvigorated to levels I didn't even think were possible. I am eternally grateful she gave me a chance to be her partner."

Lily took a breath. Here goes nothing. "I don't think that I understood what a partner should be until James came around because he embodies it. Both on and off the ice, he always seeks to make my life easier, to lighten my load, he'll always do whatever he can to make sure I'm okay, and happy. And I try to do the same. And that, as a result, makes doing our job – skating – a lot easier. I think that aspect about him for me, has been key in our partnership because I stress very easily, but he can manage to help me stay calm and he keeps me grounded. I think... a lot of people approach skating partnerships very methodically, as an 'I'll pull my weight, you pull yours' situation, and I'll admit I used to kind of see it like that too. But with James, I've learned that a partnership works best when you both care and you both help each other. He's always there when I need him, and he's someone I can completely rely on for anything. Because he's just that kind of person... for everyone. He's the person who will... look after your pet when you're away, or help you move, or go out of his way to make you smile. I think... everyone should have a James."

Anne seemed a little thrown, in a positive way.

Lily scolded herself. She'd said way too much. She didn't even fucking remember what the question had been in the first place. God, she was never opening her mouth again.

The interview moved on to Worlds and their hopes for it and Lily tried not to look at James the entire time.

James nudged her on the arm once it was over and the camera and microphones were off. "That was a nice thing you said."

Lily wanted to melt into the Earth. "Don't get too used to it."

James smiled and Lily's stomach lurched at the brightness of it. "Well, if it's worth anything, I think everyone should have a Lily."

Lily rolled her eyes playfully.

AN: STEPBUK AND SBIES I'M SORRY I HAD MINERVA SAY THE KISS CHOREO IS TACKY, IT ISN'T TACKY WHEN S/B DO IT, THEY'RE UNIVERSALLY ALLOWED TO BE SLUTTY ON THE ICE.

Also, we're going to Worlds next chapter and after that this story will pretty much be over :(((