AN: So, I'm not really into having face-claims for my stories but I thought it might be a good idea to pick an ice dance team to sort of be the official stand-in for Jily, I wanted someone around their age and that looked at least kinda like I imagine them, height difference and all. Sadly, there aren't many redheaded girls in ice dance (okay, there's one but I literally hate that team and actively root for them to retire) but I still tried to go for the closest thing. My main reason for doing this was bc I wanted to make a video edit with said team, and I chose Kazakova and Reviya, whom I love. The video is pinned on my twitter tchaikovskayas if u want to see it !
I also recently made an instagram to share figure skating videos so that I can stop terrorising my irls with fs content, so you can check that out if u want, it's tessastwizzles !
Lastly, thank you all for the reviews, and TiffanyToms, I'm sorry, I don't know what a JilyAwards is :/
"Lily? Lily? Oh my god, I think she's dead, Mellie."
Lily snapped out of her daze and glared at James. She felt red in the face. "I'm not dead."
James grinned. "Sure looked it for a minute. I've sent you the pictures."
Lily rubbed her clammy hands over her jeans and dug her phone out of her pocket.
James led her and Melanie to their seats in the arena where they would be watching the last group of men take the ice. Lily still felt like she was dreaming as James pulled her by the hand.
She, Lily Evans, had just met her idol, her inspiration, her ice dance one and only for the past eight years, Tessa Virtue. Oh, and Scott had been there too.
Lily had almost felt like her heart had stopped when she'd spotted them backstage in the arena. She wasn't usually one to get very starstruck, but she had to admit her brain had stopped working when she'd seen them. She'd been almost too afraid to go over to them. James had had to practically drag her.
In fact, she barely remembered the brief words they had exchanged. She had felt like she'd been hallucinating the entire time. She might have fangirled at Tessa a little too much. But she remembered Tessa had been incredibly nice.
Tessa and Scott had also mentioned watching their short dance, which Lily had thought was a nice sentiment from them but had definitely not believed. Their nice comments about it had almost made her believe that they had seen it though.
It had gone quite well, their short dance that morning. Lily had been so nervous that now, hours later she had almost no recollection of it at all. She only knew it had gone well because she had looked at the protocols afterwards. They had gotten a new personal best score and were currently sitting in ninth place (albeit, not by a lot) going into the free dance. Their goal for Worlds was to place within the top ten so, things were looking good. They only had to hold on to that ninth spot, or better yet, improve it, and Lily would certainly declare Worlds a success. And they were stronger on the free dance, so that seemed like a pretty likely possibility at the moment.
Lily definitely felt more relaxed now than the mess of nerves she had been that morning. She remembered James rubbing her arms and whispering words of encouragement by the boards right before going out on the ice... after that, it was pretty much a blur. Both before and after she had been stuck in her thoughts. She was trying to be more present though. She hadn't made good on her promise to have fun yet. She had thought she'd do it after the Free Dance was over, but James and Melanie had insisted she start now.
So, they were watching the Men's Short Program. Their encounter with Tessa and Scott had delayed them slightly, so when they finally sat down the second guy in the group was already about to start.
She heard James yell out, "¡Vamos Javi!" before the music came on.
Lily sat in silence all through Javier Fernández's program, partly because she was still reeling from meeting Virtue and Moir and partly because Fernández was so captivating when he skated you couldn't help but pay attention to him.
James cheered loudly as the program ended. "He's fucking amazing."
Lily nodded. "That program is great. Pity about the fall though."
James smiled. "The quality of the jumps he did land should absolutely get him a good lead in my opinion. Those were absolutely flawless."
Lily liked his enthusiasm. "I agree. I'm kind of rooting for Yuzuru though."
James's brows raised. "I'd be happy if he won too, but I'm partial to Javier."
The scores were announced and Javier was in first. They watched in silence except for James's occasional commentary about edge quality and transitions into elements.
Finally, it was Yuzuru Hanyu's turn and Lily jumped up in her seat. Her heart raced as the music started and he took his first steps. It was as if the entire arena was holding their breath while he skated. He was just perfect. Even though this was singles and not ice dance, it made Lily remember why she fell in love with figure skating in the first place. The smooth blend of athleticism and art; Hanyu made it look easy.
Lily cheered along with everyone else in the crowd. She just hoped that one day she would be able to create the energy that Hanyu had brought to the arena today.
There was still one person left to skate but it was already clear who had taken the short program once the score was announced.
"Oh, I should've brought my Russian flag," Lily said as the last skater, a Russian, took to the ice.
"Why do you have a Russian flag?" James asked, amused.
Lily shrugged. "After Team Great Britain, I'm Team Russia."
James seemed surprised.
"It's not a coincidence all the greatest female ice dancers of all time are Russian; Anissina, Grishchuk, Klimova, Bestemianova. Sans Tessa of course," Lily explained.
James smiled. "So should I just call you... Lilia Evansova now?"
Lily rolled her eyes but smiled. She slapped his arm playfully. "Shut up."
The most shocking thing that had happened so far during Lily's time in Boston was how relaxed she felt on the day of the Free Dance. She worked out with Melanie in the morning, then she had a pleasant lunch with her parents. Then she had one last practice with James where she completely ignored what all the other teams were doing, not to mention she was all-smiles with him.
Also shockingly, she didn't even feel sick to her stomach as she got ready. They were skating in the second to last group. With skaters that were a lot more experienced than them. In fact, Lily realised early on that she and James were actually the youngest skaters competing in the ice dance event. That kind of put into perspective how utterly amazing it would be to place in the top ten.
Melanie grinned as she finished with Lily's eyeliner. "Done."
Lily looked in the mirror. Her winged eyeliner was flawless. "Thank you, Mel." She hugged her friend.
"No problem. Good luck, babe."
Lily thanked her again before setting off to find James.
He was ready to walk out to the ice for the warmup in his long-sleeved white shirt and perfectly tousled hair. His entire face brightened when he spotted her. "Lily! You look... perfect."
Lily smiled. "So do you."
He took her hand. "How are you feeling?"
"Uh, surprisingly calm."
"That's good. We're as ready as we can be. Nothing left to do but leave it all out there in the ice." He leaned down to kiss Lily's cheek, just an inch off from her lips. He snuck a glance down at her deep red lips. "Wouldn't want to ruin your lipstick."
Lily glanced around them to the empty hallway. She smiled and very quickly tilted her head up to meet James's lips with her own in a sneaky kiss. She laughed quietly into her hand as she realised that she had in fact, left some red lipstick residue on James's lips. "Oh shoot."
She licked her thumb and rubbed at the red on his mouth.
"Lily, if you want to share spit with me, we can just do that again."
Lily shushed him. "Shut up. There." She told herself she really had to stop doing that.
Soon enough, everyone else in their group was ready and they were being let out onto the ice for their five-minute warmup.
As she saw the packed arena, Lily started feeling some of those nerves creeping up on her. They had been on the first group for the short program, and it hadn't been even half this packed. They were introduced and all too soon they were going through their warmup drill.
They finished a set of twizzles near the short end of the rink and Lily noticed something in the audience. She had to do a double-take because she seriously could not believe it. "Oh my god, is that... ?"
It was their friends from Estonia, the Simms. Mrs Simms had brought a small knitted banner with Lily and James's names on it in colourful letters. It was hands down the cutest thing she'd ever seen.
James had noticed it too. "Yeah, I almost forgot. Mrs Simms emailed me to tell me their son was driving them here from New Hampshire for the Free Dance."
Lily smiled. "That's so nice." She was glad to know they had at least one fan in the arena that wasn't related to them.
"You good?" James asked as they got off the ice. He'd obviously noticed she was getting anxious.
Lily nodded. They moved back to the off-ice warmup area to await their turn.
James squeezed Lily's hand as the moment drew nearer. "Lily, you're the best ice dancer I know, everything will be okay."
Lily rolled her shoulders. "You're the best ice dancer I know."
James smiled. He took a step and wrapped her up in his arms. Lily leaned her head on his chest. His heartbeat was a lot steadier than hers. "Either way, I love you and I'm proud of you no matter what happens."
Lily blushed. She was finally feeling like she could breathe again. James kissed the top of her head and let go. Lily wished he wouldn't, but they were being called to the ice.
Minerva gave them some words of encouragement before sending them off.
"Let's go get them, kiddo." James took her hand.
"They represent Great Britain. Please welcome now, Lily Evans and James Potter."
James gave Lily's hand one last squeeze before they took their starting positions.
The music started and Lily felt it to her bones. Marina had given them this program because they were both very passionate people. At the beginning of the season, their relationship had been intense in all the wrong ways, so it had seemed fitting to have a program that kind of looked like they were fighting each other. Things had changed now though. They weren't fighting each other anymore, they were fighting together. That intensity was still there, it had just evolved.
They skated their little hearts out. Lily was thankful for how much the audience seemed to be with them. She fed off their energy. She was definitely aware of the technical side of the program but she also let herself get lost in the performance. They were in sync with each other naturally now, and they could focus on attuning every one of their movements to the musical accents.
She wanted to scream in joy as they got through the last element. James held onto her wrist as she bent down for their ending pose. She could have cried.
James let out a victorious yell that was almost drowned out by the roar of the crowd cheering for them. He pulled her up and squeezed her into the tightest hug, lifting her off her feet and spinning her around. Lily grinned at him as he let go. He kissed the top of her head and whispered, "that was fucking amazing, Lily."
They took their bows and turned to leave the ice when Lily spotted Mrs Simms on her feet, waving her little banner. Lily waved animatedly at her.
They got off the ice to kisses and hugs from their coaches and choreographer. Lily felt like she'd burst from how happy she was.
Lily and James sat on the Kiss & Cry in between Minerva and Marina and Lily found that she didn't even care if the score wasn't that great, that performance was enough. Okay, she did care a little bit.
Lily took James's hand before the announcer spoke up. "The scores please for Lily Evans and James Potter of Great Britain. Their free dance score... 107.60 points, which is a season's best. Their total competition score... 175.63 points, they are currently in second place."
Lily let out an involuntary squeal. That was almost ten points higher than their previous best! And they were second! With six left. They'd be at least eighth. She wrapped her arms around James's neck. He kissed the side of her face at least ten times. They hugged Minerva and Marina, who were also over the moon.
They left the Kiss & Cry and headed to the green room to sit and wait. Lily was almost in tears.
They watched the last group in silence. Now that it was all pretty much over, Lily felt the exhaustion creeping in. She leaned her head on James's shoulder. God, she was tired.
Lily wasn't particularly into any of the teams skating in the last group, so time dragged by. Nothing particularly shocking happened, as expected with ice dance, and then it was over. Just like that. Lily had been stressing about this event for months and months and now it was done with and she had no idea what to do.
They ended up seventh. She gladly took it. Seventh at your first Worlds was a great result. Tessa and Scott themselves had been sixth at their own first Worlds. With ice dance, it was always the long haul. Lily found that she didn't mind. She'd get to skate with James for a long time.
It was pretty late when they got back to the hotel. All Lily wanted to do was sleep for the next twenty-four hours.
James had his arm around her shoulders as he led her to the lifts so she could finally crash.
A voice came from down the hallway. "This isn't the end of this, Evans."
Lily looked at the lift doors only a few metres away. Ugh so close. But of course, there was no rest for the wicked. "Just leave us alone, John."
"I don't know what you have over those judges or what James's parents might have paid them but you can rest assured that this will not be the end of it."
James sighed. "John, man, we beat you fair and square, everyone knows it, and you can die mad about it for all I care."
Lily didn't want to admit it but she liked this side of James.
John's face was contorted in anger. "Actually, you should enjoy this. Because you won't be at the top for long."
Lily didn't like the look on his face. And she didn't like how easily he stood down and just left them alone.
In all truth, Lily hadn't thought of John pretty much all day. He and Tala had been in the group before theirs and had ended up in thirteenth place (which was a little high if you asked Lily), so they hadn't really crossed paths.
Lily frowned. "I feel like he's up to something."
James rubbed his temples. "Well, the season's over, so whatever it is, we probably won't have to deal with it for at least a few months."
Lily took this small comfort.
Lily was thankful that their event had been the first one to end because for the next two days she could just go watch everyone else stress-free.
She currently sat between James and Melanie, waiting for the ice to be resurfaced for the last two groups of ladies to skate. James was talking in rapid-fire Spanish to Javier Fernández who sat on his other side. She had talked to him for a little bit too. Now she took her phone out of her pocket and checked her texts.
Mary had sent her approximately twenty thousand texts for the past two days. She had been incredibly happy for them and their seventh-place finish. Lily wished she were there. Then things would really be perfect. She had a few other texts from friends and family congratulating her on her performance.
She found it curious that she had about ten texts from Alena. First, Alena had congratulated Lily, then there were some very cryptic texts saying that there was something urgent she had to say to Lily. Then three voice messages. Almost ten minutes long combined.
It was noisy in the arena and Lily was very curious as to what Alena had to say, so she excused herself to the bathroom and walked off to a quieter spot.
She clicked on the messages.
"So, the day after your free dance, I was at the rink and after our session was over, we were talking about the event and I mentioned how well you and James had done, especially in comparison to Tala and John, and how it proved how bullshit it had been for your scores to be so close at Nats. Since some people in our group continue to insist on holding on to the stupid rivalry between our groups, most were hesitant on agreeing with me. But Narcissa did – she's back, by the way, sans Evan – and she mentioned what we all know about how John's dad has donated a lot of money to the British Fed, but then she said something that I found very interesting.
"She said that if people even knew half the things John's done to sabotage you and James, he'd be banned from the sport for life. Which... well, is a serious accusation. So, I cornered her before she left the rink and I forced her to tell me exactly what she meant by this. And she had some very interesting things to say."
Lily's heart raced. Of course, she knew John had it out for them but she could not believe Narcissa of all people had admitted it.
"So, you know Narcissa and Tala are friends because they used to skate in the same group when they were younger, and back when Narcissa and Evan withdrew from Worlds, Tala went to see Narcissa to check on her. Obviously, Tala also wanted to know what was Narcissa and Evan's situation so she could go gossip about it with her rink mates, which pissed off Narcissa. Either way, they ended up getting into a fight. A fight where Tala ended up confessing to Narcissa that John had, in fact, tampered with James's skates at the MNNT Cup."
Lily let out a small gasp.
"Of course, Tala will probably deny it if asked about it. Narcissa knew this perfectly well. And she claims she did it for herself because when she comes back, she can't have competition who will go to these lengths to sabotage other teams, but I don't know... anyway, she recorded some of her conversation with Tala, and let me just say that it's pretty incriminating towards John. Narcissa was saving the recording for leverage, but I made her show it to me and I'm sending it to you now."
That was the last voice message before a video file Alena had sent. Lily's hands were sweaty as she clicked play.
The screen was black. Obviously, the phone the video was recorded on was in someone's pocket or in some sort of hiding place.
Lily recognised Tala's voice. "It's not a fucking crime to want to win, Narcissa. I wouldn't expect you to understand since you withdrew from Worlds for what clearly seems like no reason."
Narcissa's voice was venomous. "Do not presume you know what's going on in my life, Tala. I understand wanting to win but even I wouldn't deliberately try to seriously injure my rivals to take them out. You're fucking pathetic, Tala."
"Will you shut up about that? No one was meant to get hurt."
Narcissa scoffed. "Well, if I loosened John's blades and he tried to skate a full program like that, including lifting you while on a deep outside edge... I'd say that's a pretty sure-fire way to get someone hurt."
"Why are you even defending them, Narcissa? I thought you hated everyone from McGonagall's group."
"I wouldn't say we're the best of friends, but I don't think that they deserve to get sabotaged to the point of injury just because Johnny's upset Lily's doing much better than him after he decided to drop her in the middle of last season."
Tala was really fuming now. "Whatever Narcissa. Besides, it wasn't like I was the one who took the screwdriver and loosened the screws in Potter's skates, it was John."
"But you sure as hell didn't do anything about it, did you?" The image moved, Narcissa had grabbed her phone. Lily caught a glimpse of Tala standing in the living room of what she assumed was Narcissa's house, her face was scrunched up in anger. "Will you just get the fuck out of my house, Tala?"
Then the video stopped.
Lily looked at the time stamp on the texts. Alena had sent them hours ago. Lily couldn't believe this bomb had just been dropped on her like that. She never thought she would be involved in this level of drama. This was some 90s Russian ice dance drama shit.
She felt a touch on her arm. It was James. "Lily? Are you okay? It's already started."
Lily took a breath and nodded. She put her phone away. She really wanted to tell James everything immediately but she was having such a nice time, she didn't want John to ruin something else for her. She'd tell James later. She wanted to watch the ladies event peacefully. She would deal with this, but she'd be damned if she let herself stress too much over it now. She smiled at James. "I'm great. Let's go."