(The Completely Unwilling Participants on) The Bachelor

by Rude Gus

The title says it all.

5. Episode 4

Episode 4

"I can't even look at her right now," said Rita, and shoved her clipboard directly into Sirius Black's chest. "You do it. I need a strong drink and a sedative."

Then she stormed out of the room, cursing, which was a first if ever Lily had witnessed one.

Lily had also never seen Rita leave the reins of her precious show in the hands of someone else, especially not one of the confessionals, and especially not when Sirius—who was also in trouble, having been caught in his bedroom with Charlene Stebbins mere hours before James had booted her out—was her best available option. Rita knew no greater pleasure than barraging the girls with probing question after probing question, sucking gleefully on the end of her pen as they reluctantly spilled their feelings, as if its ink and their candor sustained her empusa powers.

Normally, Rita would not have missed a moment like this for all the world.

In truth, Lily had initially believed that Rita might be delighted about the morning's events—such drama, such prime fodder for the cameras—even if nobody else was. However, when they arrived back at the castle and a producer herded Lily into the small, brightly lit room where the confessionals were filmed, she found Rita throwing a tantrum fit for a child who couldn't get her own way, and nobody would tell her why.

Now, Lily was sitting in front of a green screen, hot and burned and covered in bites, and Sirius was asking her to recap the disaster she had single-handedly orchestrated.

A disaster that, in her heart of hearts, she knew James had not deserved, even if the things she'd said were true. Her delivery had left a lot to be desired. Too much, in fact.

He was a nice guy. A good person. Lily liked being around him. He made her laugh.

She felt like an absolute arsehole.

"So, Lily Evans," said Sirius, looking far more amused than the situation should have allowed. "Tell us all about your date with James."

"Today," she slowly began, and paused. She'd had something suitably awful prepared, but that was before her entire plan had been completely bloody derailed. Now, she didn't know what to say. "Today, we went fishing."

"And how was that?"

She shrugged, and spread her hands out wide. "I don't know what to tell you. It was fishing. Who goes fishing on a date? Do you? Does anyone? Is there a single person on this earth who can hold up a wet, stinking trout and say, 'well, this was a romantic endeavor, darling,' and if so, are they mad?"

Perhaps she could talk about the horrors of fishing for the entire confessional.

"Sounds like you do know what to tell me."

She slanted a humorless smile at him. "How's Charlene doing?"

"They won't air that," said Sirius, grinning. "But she's great, thanks. Tell me about the argument."

Lily scratched a slowly-blistering mosquito bite on her bare arm. "Nothing to say about it."

"You had plenty to say during."

"Great. That means I don't need to repeat myself now," she snapped, and Sirius raised his eyebrows at her, and she let out a sigh. This wasn't his fault, either. James was his best mate, and by rights he probably should have been giving her more attitude than this. "I mean, okay, spending the morning on a bloody riverbank, getting scalded by the sun, mosquitos biting you all over… it doesn't set you up for the best mood, yeah? And it's not like James and I are close. You try being on a date with someone who clearly wants to be with someone else instead."

Lily had no idea why she was bringing that up. She didn't care that James was smitten with Isabella.

She didn't.

It seemed easy, though, to just carry on in that vein. There were no other pertinent thoughts springing to mind that she could realistically share.

"It's like, what's the point to any of this? We all know who he's going to end up with. I don't want to be some bloke's second choice, his back-up option, his in-case-this-doesn't-work-out person—"

"So," Sirius interrupted, "you want to be his first choice?"

"What?"

"You said you don't want to be his second choice," Sirius said. "Literally, just this minute. I assume that means you want to be the first."

"I don't—no," she said, shaking her head, and annoyed to find herself blushing hotly. "No, I don't ca—I just—I didn't want to go fishing."

Sirius stared at her for a moment.

A long moment.

"Right, fair enough," he said eventually, and looked down at the clipboard Rita had given him. "So, you were upset about the fishing, and you started a row—"

"I didn't start—"

"You started a row," he said, his voice growing louder, "because you don't like fishing, and you thought the date was pointless because of Isabella, and you've had some secret issues with James that you felt needed to be aired."

Sirius was a shit. A smug, presuming shit…who was giving her an out.

"I started a row," she tightly agreed, "because I don't like fishing, and I thought the date was pointless because of Isabella, and I've had some issues with James that I felt needed to be aired."

"Wonderful."

"Brilliant."

"And with all that in mind," said Sirius, looking at her with real interest now, "why do you think he wound up giving you a rose?"

Lily looked down at the flower in her hand, the first she'd received from James Potter that hadn't been immediately snatched away by production, because this was a one-on-one rose, and they needed to be part of confessionals. Lily had been singled out for this honor. Unlike the ceremony roses, this one was extra special.

It was a beautiful thing, with full, untainted crimson petals, and not a single thorn to be found on its slender stem, as fresh and real as the air she breathed.

She had assumed that they were fake, before she became part of all of this. How wrong she'd been.

"I don't know why he gave me a rose," she admitted, utterly perplexed. "I have absolutely no idea."

---

The night before...

"I can't believe you snogged Charlene." James scowled as he paced in front of Sirius's bed. Normally they'd never be alone in Sirius's room, but with the crew and Rita obsessed with getting Charlene's take on things, James had taken the chance to slip in unnoticed. "She's always droning on about cow production in Wales or whatever."

Sirius arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow from where he sat on his bed, his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. "You mean the Norwegian leather industry?"

"That's not the point!"

"What is the point, then?"

"The point is—you snogged a contestant! On the show you're hosting!"

"And?"

"And—and you can't do that!"

"You've had a dozen girls chasing you, and you don't even like this one. Why do you care?"

James stopped mid-pace. "Because—because—I don't know! Why would you want to do that with her?" he said, thrusting a pointing finger at the door.

Sirius stared at him. "She designs motorcycles," he said, in a tone that implied this was everything that would ever need explaining about it.

James frowned. "She does?"

"How can you not—never mind. You've bizarre Isabella blinders on. Your loss."

"She's so bloody boring. Why would you want to be with her?"

This time both of Sirius's eyebrows went up. "What makes you think we're doing much talking at all?"

James blanched and walked out of the room.

It was the principle of the thing, he told himself. And his mum. And Algernon, repeatedly, until Algernon scratched at their bedroom door and James had to let him escape.

At least snogging the host was enough to boot Charlene from the show. James filmed a confessional about how he just didn't get the sense Charlene was interested in him, so he wasn't giving her a rose. If he was dead annoyed in the footage, well, the viewer would have to make up their own explanation for why.

The next morning he woke up without Algernon, who'd never returned once being let out. Hopefully he'd been taken in by Lily.

It turned out he'd have the opportunity to ask her in person on their one-on-one date that day. This was fortuitous. Having to go fishing alongside a river on a scalding hot day, however, was not.

"Fishing?" he said with a grimace, after Sirius had explained the date.

"It's apparently one of Lily's favorite pastimes," Sirius said breezily.

James turned to stare at Lily. "It is?"

Lily, who was standing with her arms folded tightly over her chest, pulled a face of disgust. The tip of her nose was slightly pink. "Do I look like Captain Ahab to you? No, it most certainly is not."

James kept staring.

Sirius tilted his head and gestured toward the camera, as well as an extremely interested Rita. "It says so on your application. Are you saying you lied?"

"My grandfather submitted the application as a surprise," said Lily. She sounded supremely bored. "Apparently, he filled out the form under the impression that I'd need to impress Don Draper. He wants me to 'find love' before he dies, if you've ever heard anything so ridiculous. "

"I have heard something like that before!" James glanced over at his mum, who sat under an umbrella fitted with an overhanging mosquito net. Someone had brought her a camping chair and a fruity beverage with a tiny umbrella. Or she'd brought them herself—it was hard to know.

She lifted her drink at James and winked.

"Well," James said, clapping Lily on the arm, "it's a bit of a relief to learn that your secret hobby isn't taunting fish with imminent death." He paused. "Not that it matters, of course."

"No, it doesn't matter," she said. "It affects you in no way at all."

"Except that we've both been forced to come cause major injury and trauma to fish. But it's not your fault, and I completely sympathize."

Lily exhaled through her nose and turned to Sirius, her arms still wrapped tight around her body. "Can we just get this over with, please?"

"Can we just not do this at all?" James asked hopefully, raising a hand to block out the sun. But a look toward Rita earned no response. She didn't so much as glance at him. Instead she nodded at Sirius, who clapped his hands together.

"Let's start the fun," he said with a smile.

Unlike archery, they had no instructor or guide today. Likely the production team had envisioned a somehow sexy date of Lily teaching him how to skewer a worm on a hook, or whatever. One of the crew members handed them poles, a tackle box, and a bucket full of noxious-smelling bait.

Lily had a pinched look on her face during the gear distribution, holding her pole out as far from her body as she possibly could, occasionally fishing a tissue gingerly from her pocket and dabbing at her nose. She was still sick, then. Poor thing.

In a weird replay of what had got her sick in the first place, they ventured out onto a short pier, only this time they would absolutely not end up in the water.

God, he didn't want to end up in the water.

When they reached the end of the L-shaped pier, he set the bait bucket a decent distance from them to lessen the smell. Then he came back to Lily, who'd set down her pole and the tackle box. He heaved a sigh next to her and rested the bottom of his fishing pole on the pier.

"D'you know what to do if we somehow actually manage to get a fish?" he asked. "Because I freely admit I have no bloody clue."

Lily didn't answer right away, but slapped her hand against her bare arm.

"Bloody mosquitos," she murmured, then looked up at him and shrugged. "Just throw it in the water. You're good at that."

He nearly flinched. Fair enough for her to be snippy, though. There were probably frogs around here, and she was stuck atop their aquatic home.

"Look," he said, "I'm not exactly pleased as punch to be fishing in this sweltering heat either, you know. I'd much rather be, well, anywhere else. Preferably somewhere with less wildlife." Hopefully she picked up that he meant he didn't want her to be anywhere in the proximity of frogs.

"Then I'm sorry that they stuck you with me today, because I'm not good at bullshit and it's not a skill that I particularly want to learn." She swatted at another lingering bug. "You'll just have to deal with honesty, for a change."

"I'm not asking you to bullshit. I'm saying we're stuck here—or at least I am—and I'm glad it's with you because I hate bullshit, too. Fishing is boring as hell, but at least I'm here with you and not handsy Helena Hodge."

Lily snorted. "I don't know what part I'm supposed to be more amused at, the fact that you blatantly wish I was Isabella or the fact that I've reached the dizzying heights of being better company than Helena." She touched a hand to her heart. "Please, slow down before I fall in love with you."

James's mouth hung slightly open. Admittedly her cheek continued to dazzle and amaze with its quality, but she didn't have to hurl it at him.

"Is this about the other day?" he demanded. "Because I apologized at least twice already."

"No, this is about me being painted as some sort of man-stealer and having to apologize to your girlfriend because I bought you fries and, I dunno, interacted with you once or twice," she shot back, then slapped angrily at her knee. "These fucking mosquitos, honestly!"

"Turns out your secret hobby is hypocrisy since that's a crock of shit." He tossed his fishing pole against the wooden railing. It didn't stay in place, instead clattering onto the pier. "Isabella would never make you apologize for giving me fries or anything like that. She'd never tell you that you had something between your teeth, much less ever call you a homewrecker."

"And your secret hobby is putting words in people's mouths," she retorted. "Did I say she made me do it? It was the Queen of Darkness"—she pointed in the direction of Rita behind them, who was watching what the nearby cameramen picked up on a portable screen—"who told Isabella lies about us, which she then believed. I apologized to her of my own bloody volition because I didn't want to make a spectacle of her on telly, but go ahead and make whatever assumptions you like." She turned away from him, staring mutinously across the river. "We've got all morning."

"Seriously?" He jerked a hand toward Rita. "You're pissed off about bloody Ursula over there? Well, welcome to the bloody club. We meet every second that I'm on this fucking show."

Rita shouted something in the background, but at this distance it was incomprehensible.

"Yeah," Lily said, with a sniff, "I noticed your deep and unending misery, as it happens."

His heart gave a strange little skip. He couldn't pay it any attention, though, not when he had to use his wits to keep up with Lily. "And you decided the best way to react is to start a row with me. How generous of you. Thanks for making things even worse."

"I'm sorry," she said, and turned her eyes back on his face. "Should I flatter you instead? Should I tell you that you're just like James Bond? I know it's patently untrue, but it certainly seems to make you happy."

Her mind was so bloody quick he felt like he was Algernon chasing after a toy being jerked around. Only in this case, bizarrely, the toy was intent on giving him small electric shocks.

"I might not be James Bond," he said, "but you're certainly out for blood yourself, Oddjob."

"First of all, Oddjob can throw a razor-edged bowler hat with all the accuracy required to kill a man and he's my favorite henchman, so that's not even an insult," she said, raising a finger in the air. "Second, you should take it as a compliment that I like you enough as a person to not compare you to a misogynistic playboy who cycles through women like moist towelettes." Lily turned her gaze back over the river again. "But you do you, mate."

As caught up as he was with the fact that Lily knew and loved Oddjob, James barely heard the second point. He heard enough, though.

He pushed both his hands through his hair, and then flung them out to the side. "You're mad at the sea witch—I get it. Who wouldn't be? But why the hell are you taking it out on me?"

"Because you frustrate me!" she said immediately, whipping back around. "I mean, I'm here because I wanted to appease my grandad, I knew coming in that I wasn't going to meet the love of my life, but why are you here? You don't need this show to meet women. You're a good-looking, charming person, and all they do is treat you like shit all day, and you don't seem to want to stand up for yourself, and I don't get it!"

"That's—" he began, but then stopped. She was so sharp and clever and angry, and she should have been angry—this show was absolutely bananas, and not in a good way—but with all the shit she was putting up with… "That's what you're angry about?"

"That, and my inevitable melanoma," she said nastily, as if she would hold him responsible for such a thing. "Sorry to shock you with this incredible secret, but I'm ginger, and we tend to burn when the fucking production team won't give us any fucking sunscreen." She waved at the people on shore. "Yeah, good luck using that footage."

Rita's voice was closer now, calling out for them to change topics.

"Hold up," James said, "let me get this straight. You're pissed off because you think I'm, what, too good for this show? Well, guess what? So are you! But you don't see me here judging or insulting you for being here despite all the crap they throw at us. Sometimes you've got to put up with bullshit to make the ones you love happy."

She propped her hands on her hips, knocking her fishing pole several inches to the side with her foot. It fell onto the pier, lying crosswise over James's.

"I am not judging you," she said with a scowl, "and if you're doing this to make someone else happy, that's great for you, but has that person stood up for you at all? Does that automatically mean you deserve to get dumped on all the time? You do realize that you are the show, right?" She touched one hand to her chest. "I'm expendable in this insane fishbowl world we're living in, but you're not. They actually need you to keep this going."

James found it difficult to do much besides openly gape at her, his arms hanging helpless at his sides.

This was what had got her all hot and bothered? Besides the horrific heat that was turning her bug-bitten skin a bright shade of pink: the fact that Rita treated him like one of the insects attacking Lily?

Footsteps pounded along the pier, approaching them. They were not Rita's delicate heels, which was enough of a surprise to finally draw James's attention away from Lily.

Peter ran up to them, panting, and called out weakly, "Stop!"

Lily, however, did not seem ready to stop. In fact, her hand shot out and closed around James's.

"At our photoshoot," she said, with a slight waver in her voice, as if she was trying to make herself sound calmer than she was, "I watched her hit you in the head because you made a joke, and every time I talk to you, you're telling me how shit this whole thing is, and that's not okay." Her gaze darted away for a moment, but returned quickly back to his face. "Look, if I could make her get off your back and treat you like a human being, I would—I wish I could, I wish someone was looking out for you—but I've literally got no power here. You do. That's all I'm trying to say."

James would have killed for a witty response right then. He'd even have committed arson for even a mediocre one.

Sadly, all words that could be contained in a response had fled the premises like deer before a forest fire.

Instead he just kept staring at Lily Evans like a mute fool while Rita hurried toward them as quickly as she could in heels on a wooden dock.

Then, without forethought, James's brain made his mouth say, "Someone is looking out for me." His eyes locked onto Lily's. "You brought me fries."

Rita threw herself between them, breaking Lily's grip on James. "This. Stops. Now."

She reached out and grabbed Lily's arm with her pincer-like fingers, but Lily wrenched her hand away immediately and traveled back several steps, moving out of her reach.

"Don't touch me, Rita," she said coldly, then pointed at James's chest. "Or him. And stop threatening to fire Peter just because he helped me buy some food. This is a reality TV show—you're not Christopher bloody Nolan."

Rita's narrowed eyes and tense frame delicately suggested that she was prepared to launch at Lily any second. As the cameras were no doubt still rolling, though, she restrained herself to saying, "Back to the car with you."

"Fine. That's just fine," said Lily, and tossed her hair over her shoulder. She fixed Peter with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry you had to witness this, Peter, and James—" Her eyes traveled back to meet his, and she let out a small sigh. "I'm just—sorry."

Then, with one last glower in Rita's direction, she pushed her way through the three of them and marched back along the pier.

Peter gave James a sheepish look.

Rather than say anything to him, James watched Lily hop onto the shore and walk with her head held high to the car park. It took a lot of will, he thought, for her not to so much as scratch the many bites on her arm along the way. Those mosquitoes had gorged themselves on her skin, apparently finding James as unappealing as haggis.

"She's not getting a rose," Rita announced. "She is an uncooperative troublemaker."

Without looking at Rita, James said evenly, "She stays."

"I have final say. It's in the contract."

"You can get rid of her, but any time anything interesting happens on this show, I will start cursing. I will mention every brand name I know. I will sing every line to the tune of Uptown Girl to make it absolutely unusable. You'll have no show. Nothing."

"You'll violate the contract."

He regarded her coolly. "I won't be the one with half a series' worth of expenses and nothing to air."

He breezed past her, strode along the pier, and stalked up to the crew member with the rose.

"Give me that," James said, and snatched it out of the bloke's skinny hand. The man put up no fight at all, as well he shouldn't have.

With a filming Bozo in tow, James made directly for the car Lily had climbed into.

He knocked on the back-seat window. "Oi, Evans. Open up."

The window rolled down slowly to reveal a thoroughly pink-faced Lily, who lowered a bottle of water she had acquired and looked up at him curiously, a slight crinkle above her nose. "Yeah?"

He thrust the rose through the window, holding it in front of her face. "Will you accept this rose?"

She looked at it for a moment, then at him. The little crinkle deepened. "Really?"

"This isn't the sort of prank I'd enjoy, so yeah."

"Oh," she said quietly. She studied the flower for a moment, long enough that James's heart skipped out of fear. But after a couple beats, she reached up and took the rose from his outstretched hand. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome," he said. "And have a nice night."

Without another word, he turned around and strolled away, shoving his hands in his shorts pockets, a faint smile forming on his face.

---

Guilt was a tricky bitch to live with.

It was also quite unfamiliar to Lily, who generally tried to do the right thing when she found herself faced with a moral dilemma. She just about managed it most of the time, and felt it was a point of pride.

Until today, it seemed, when she subjected an innocent person to an awful lambasting, all for the sake of advancing her own career.

She wasn't sure if that made her as bad as Rita, or worse, but she felt wretched about it, especially since she hadn't meant for things to turn out the way they did.

Her initial plan had simply been to annoy James so much that he refused to give her a rose, no doubt backed up by Rita, who was clearly desperate to throw Lily out the castle doors like she was DJ Jazzy Jeff. It wasn't ideal, but she'd assumed it would be easy enough to get on his nerves without venturing into hurtful territory. Regrettable, yes, because James was a nice person, but not morally bankrupt.

She hadn't meant to unleash on him.

She hadn't meant to add something as combustible as her actual feelings to the mix.

And so fast, too, like she couldn't wait to give him a piece of her mind.

Apparently, she felt more strongly about Rita's treatment of James than she had previously realized.

Following her confessional with Sirius, Lily sought out another producer and asked for permission to spend the rest of the day in her bedroom, recovering from her cold. It was a weak excuse, but the only one she had, and she was quite surprised to learn that Rita was only too happy to acquiesce to this arrangement. Of course, she added the condition that Lily take her rose with her to the swimming pool, where the other girls were lounging, so that the raw reactions of all could be caught on camera.

This shameless display, unfortunately, was customary for any recipient of a one-on-one rose.

It was uncomfortably hot outside, hotter even than it had been at the river, now that the sun had risen higher in the afternoon sky. Lily knew how she must have looked in her sweaty tank and shorts, her arms speckled with bites, and how she smelled, even though she hadn't touched the water. The slightly putrid scent of bait was clinging to her skin, while the girls all looked so pretty and fresh.

Walking up to them felt like an awkward, terrible, one-woman parade, only without the accompanying upbeat music, papier-mâché floats, or oversized balloons based on popular cartoon figures from her childhood.

And a crowd of only five people.

Normally, Lily liked parades. She especially liked watching them on telly, where she didn't have to stand out in the cold, but she had no desire to be part of this particular performance.

She slipped through the tall glass doors and padded across the concrete.

"You're back early," said Wendy, who was parked next to Isabella and Bonnie on a sun lounger, rubbing coconut oil into her exposed stomach. Her brown pigtails bobbed as she shifted in her seat to better see her. "How was it?"

Beside her, Isabella opened her eyes, her gaze falling immediately on the rose in Lily's hand.

This bloody rose.

This bloody rose that Lily had accepted like the biggest idiot in the world. She just might have gotten away with refusing to take it when details of their fight reached Scrimgeour's ears. She could have called it PMS, or something similar. Her boss was the kind of fool who bought into the theory that menstruating women were irrational beasts.

Lily was holding the rose with inexplicable delicacy, as if James had asked her to keep it safe, and it was of utmost importance that it stay perfect and whole, but there was no real reason for her to feel compelled to protect the thing that had essentially screwed her out of a job offer. She'd called Mary first thing that morning and arranged to meet her in Soho later in the week. Now she wouldn't be able to keep the appointment because James had done the exact opposite of what she'd expected, and saved her from potential elimination.

She'd throw the rose in the bin later.

Maybe.

"Date was cut short because I'm not feeling well," she replied, her eyes finding Beatrice's at once. Her friend was treading water in the middle of the pool, watching her concernedly. "I'm just here to say hello before I go to bed."

"Is it your cold?" said Bea.

"Yeah, I think so," she said, and scratched her arm with three fingers. Bullshit. Beatrice's face told her that she'd gotten the message. "Think I got a bit too much sun. They had us standing right out in it."

"You poor pet," said Bonnie, who was braiding Isabella's hair. "Did you have a nice time before you felt poorly, at least?"

Lily shrugged her shoulders. "I guess. Maybe. I don't know, I'm just really tired."

They'd learn all about the fight soon enough—perhaps James would tell Isabella when he next saw her, looking for sympathy and affection—but Lily had no intention of spilling the beans on camera. She'd already done enough spilling in the confessional, though most of it was nonsense, and had obviously left Sirius with the cockamamie idea that she had feelings for his mate.

"You got a rose, though," said Wendy, smiling, "so he must have enjoyed himself."

"I don't know, maybe." She was starting to sound like a bloody parrot. Trying to reason out how their row had gotten so out of hand was difficult enough without puzzling over James's decision to keep her in the competition. "I'm going to head upstairs now."

"Wait a sec," said Beatrice, and swam gracefully to the edge of the pool, cutting through the water like the blade of a knife. She hauled herself out with her long, brown arms. "Just let me get dried off and I'll follow you up. They already took my microphone off so I could get in the water."

"Sure," Lily agreed. "I have to go and get mine taken off, so I'll see you upstairs."

She felt Isabella's mournful gaze on her back as she turned to leave.

Isabella was probably hoping that Lily would sit her down, for the second time that day, and gently explain that she had nothing to worry about.

If she was, she had a major disappointment coming her way.

Isabella had done a truly excellent job of preparing Lily for her role as Irritated Girl that morning. After listening to a profuse and unnecessary apology, and being assured that there was nothing romantic brewing between Lily and James, Isabella had sniffed, nodded, and could not understand why Rita would lie about it. Then she'd explained that she "struggling" because her time with James was rare and Lily was "so beautiful."

As if Isabella wasn't beautiful herself.

As if James was the type who could have his head turned by a pretty face and nothing more. Lily didn't know him like Isabella did but she would have been willing to bet that he was made of stronger stuff than that. She would have been offended, if she were him.

Isabella was kind and gentle and Lily liked her very much, but the whole exchange had been annoying beyond belief. Lily had been forced to bite her tongue rather than ask Isabella why she felt the need to fall to pieces over a man, particularly when she had walked into the competition knowing that she wasn't the only girl with designs on the bloke they were there to seduce.

This wasn't a real-world situation, Isabella wasn't owed any loyalty, and Lily was the only girl in the house who hadn't tried to flirt with James in any way. If she had, he would have known all about it. She was bloody good at flirting. Some would have called her a proficient.

If Isabella toughened up, then she wouldn't be brought to tears because other girls might fancy the boy she liked.

Lily didn't understand why she and James were so tight in the first place.

It was unkind of her to think it, but no less true.

Isabella was sweet, sure, but she was sensitive, and not particularly outgoing, whereas James...was a lot of different things. A lot of character. A lot of theatrics. He was articulate and funny and blindingly ridiculous, and didn't seem like the type of man who would meld particularly well with someone as sensitive as Isabella in the long run. He'd likely wind up feeling bored, and she overshadowed.

Really, given what Lily had observed of James Potter, it seemed obvious to her that what he really needed was to be with a woman who knew how and when to give him a kick up the arse.

A metaphorical kick, not a real one.

Isabella Marks was plainly not that woman.

But then, that wasn't any of Lily's business.

Once she had been stripped of all recording equipment and warned by producers to let them know if she intended to venture back downstairs, Lily made the arduous climb to the top floor, changed into her lightest pajamas and waited on her bed for Beatrice to follow her up.

Her friend appeared shortly, bringing with her a decorative glass vase that Lily recognized from the dining room. She had already filled it halfway-up with water.

"Thought you might want this for your rose," she said, and set the vase down on the vanity.

"Were you allowed to take it?"

"Nope."

"So, you stole a vase on camera?"

"No, I borrowed a vase on camera. What are they going to do, have me arrested for moving it to another room?" Beatrice countered, and held her hand out for the rose, which lay next to Lily on her duvet. "Give it here."

"I ought to stomp on it," said Lily darkly, but handed it over anyway.

Beatrice popped it into the vase and surveyed it in silence for a moment.

Stupid, mystifying rose.

"Pretty," she concluded, then turned to Lily with one hand resting on her hip. "What happened to goading him into giving you the boot?"

"Oh, it all went super well," said Lily, "except it got way too real, and I'm a bad person now, and he followed me to the car and shoved a rose through the window." She gave Beatrice a thumbs-up. "Otherwise, I'd say it was a perfectly executed scheme."

"Wicked," said Beatrice, taking it all on the chin. She sat down on the edge of Lily's bed. "Start at the beginning and leave nothing out."

While Beatrice proved her mettle as a friend and future flatmate by hanging on to her words with rapt attention, Lily ran through every detail of the date that she could clearly remember through the smokescreen of confusion and shame, including the weird confessional with Sirius, those bastard mosquitos, and the fact that she now felt as if she'd kicked an injured puppy in the head.

God only knew what James thought of her—that she was a lunatic, no doubt—or why he'd chosen to let her stay. Her best and only guess was that Rita had insisted upon it for the sake of drama, but that didn't make any sense. Most of their argument would be completely unusable on account of how much they'd bashed the show, and if Rita wanted some insanity for the cameras, she had the increasingly terrifying Helena Hodge at her disposal.

"Maybe he's dying?" Beatrice suggested, after Lily had finished recounting the date and declared herself bewildered by James's subsequent actions. "Dying tragically, yet handsomely, and he wanted to give you one last rose because…"

"Because what?"

"No idea. You're the writer. I was counting on you to think of something."

"You'd think his last port of call, prior to death, would be to give me a rose through the car window?"

"I think the prospect of his imminent death would force him to wake up and realize that the two of you are endgame."

"If you don't mind, I'm going to shelve the death theory on account of neither of us being a character in a romance novel," Lily said, slumping backwards against the wall. "Maybe it's like a punishment, or something. Like, he knows I hate Rita, and that she hates me..."

"Do you really think he'd keep you in to be cruel?"

"No," Lily sighed. "I know he wouldn't, but I really can't think of anything else at this point."

Beatrice made a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat and drew her feet onto the bed, hugging her knees to her chest, while Lily closed her eyes and focused on the slightly warm breeze that their ever-whirring fan was wafting towards her face.

She'd only been up for a matter of hours, but already she was tired.

Not that she'd have much luck sleeping if she tried now. She still had to call Mary and explain why she would be missing their meeting, then compose some sort of apology for James.

For the first time, she wished for a cocktail party. She could have used a drink.

"I've got an idea," Beatrice piped up, after a few minutes of silence, during which time Lily had started to count her bites for want of something better to do. "What if he let you stay because he appreciates what you said?"

Lily paused in the act of examining her inner thigh to frown at her. "What?"

"Well, okay, his mother's pretty hardy, isn't she? I mean, she made him apologize to you on his knees."

"She's hardier than most, I think."

"Well, there you go, he probably responds well to strong-willed women who tell him what's what."

Lily felt half-tempted to use Isabella as a counter-argument, but let that thought go. It was unkind. And true. But mostly unkind.

"There's a difference," she said slowly, "between tough love for the sake of progress, and flat-out insulting somebody."

"Right, because it's so insulting when a pretty girl says you're hot and charming."

"I also accused him of not being able to stand up for himself."

"Well, he wasn't standing up for himself," Beatrice pointed out, "and maybe he needed to hear that."

He had needed to hear it, Lily reflected. That part, at least, was true.

Shame it didn't make her feel any better.

---

James had been silent the whole car ride back to the castle. He'd taken the front seat, where Rita normally sat, and she hadn't said so much as a word about it.

Rita's presence didn't normally shut up him and his mum. But he had a lot to think through.

Lily Evans.

Lily bloody Evans.

Lily bitten Evans, really.

He tapped his fingers along the car door beneath the window, watching the fields pass by.

She was just so…different.

In so many ways. In so many surprising ways.

She wanted better for him. But she'd just met him.

Of course, he'd wanted better for her, too. If she hadn't said the word, he'd have kicked her off the show to get back to her own life and away from this alcohol-infused, camera-ridden hell.

James was always pushing Peter to do more. And Sirius. Not so much Remus, who actually needed to do less, given his heart condition. James was always wanting all of them to be happier and achieve more and generally live their best lives. Because he cared about them and he loved them and he saw where they fell short. He tried to help them. They usually did the same for him, current show misery aside, and even that wasn't entirely their doing; the show basically banned them from helping him too much.

They all knew him terribly well—possibly too well, at times—and yet none of them had asked if he was all right. If they could do anything, within the show's limitations, to help him out.

Why had Lily seen what they couldn't?

He nearly laughed to himself. The answer, of course, was that they were used to him whinging. He loved a good whinge. He complained when his favorite cafe was out of raspberry white chocolate scones, and when Algernon didn't bring him sandwiches, and when anyone beat Arsenal.

He'd boy-who-cried-wolf'd himself.

But even that didn't fully explain why Lily had seen it, when none of the other girls had said anything.

The other reason, inevitably, was that...Lily was looking. Looking at him. Really seeing him, not just pursuing a connection to get another rose. She hadn't even been interested in talking to him at all at first—just in Algernon—so she wasn't saying any of what she'd said to stay on the show. To make him think she was deeply in love with him, despite knowing him less than two weeks. If she had, she'd have couched her concerns in soft, loving terms—not by picking a fight and insulting him while suffering through a mosquito swarm.

But if she had done it that way, would he have listened? Or would it have seemed like a ploy worthy of Helena Hodge?

A knuckle tapped on the window, starting James out of his thoughts.

He looked up to see his mum standing outside the car. They'd made it to the castle, apparently, and everyone but James had both noticed and exited the vehicle in a timely fashion.

"Come on," she said, her voice muffled by the glass. "We need to have a chat."

Rita remained cowed, and didn't bat an eye when Euphemia informed her she was taking James to tea in one of the salons, just the two of them. She even directed Rita to send tea up to them from the kitchen, and Rita only nodded tightly.

Euphemia led him through the castle, past miserable-looking portraits of the rich arseholes who'd owned this place throughout history, and opened the door to a room he hadn't been in before. This one, much like the rest of the castle, seemed to have been decorated two centuries ago and never updated since. It was all uncomfortable furniture and dark wood and depressing paintings of grim-faced families.

As soon as his mum had closed the door, she turned around and demanded coolly, "She hit you?"

Oh. Oh. This was a follow-up he had not anticipated.

He shrugged one shoulder, turning halfway away from her. "Small smack upside the head. It didn't even really hurt."

"She and I will be exchanging words. Or rather, I will be taking my words and shoving them into her mouth and down her throat until she fully digests them."

"No," he said firmly. "Don't. I'm going to talk to her." After a moment, he added, "With less violence, though."

"This is inexcusable."

"Whatever," he said, eyeing the door behind her. What he really needed was some time to talk things through with Algernon. "I won't let it happen again."

"James."

He risked a glance at her, and damn it, this was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid: that unhappy tilt to her mouth, and the way she had slumped into a chair.

"Mum—"

"No. James." She pushed a few stray hairs off her wrinkled forehead. "I owe you an apology."

"You really don't—"

"I do. In all the excitement of a dream come true, I've been neglecting you."

"I'm a grown man," James pointed out. "I even know how to clean unwieldy stains on cooking pots now. Remus gave me a certificate of adulthood over it."

"But you're still my son and I'm responsible for making sure you're well. And you haven't been."

His heart wrenched, torn between the apology he hadn't known he'd wanted, and the agony of seeing his mum in pain.

"It hasn't been that bad—"

She lifted a white eyebrow. "Hasn't it?"

"I mean—all right, yes, it has. Obviously. But—"

"But nothing. I knew you wouldn't love being on this show, but I thought it would be alright. And I thought—hoped—that maybe you would find the right girl."

"And I have, so."

She beckoned him closer and took his hand. "You're putting up with a lot just being here," she told him. "You don't have to put up with being mistreated."

"No, I—I get that now."

"Lily Evans is the cleverest girl I have ever known—"

"Besides yourself, you mean—"

"Obviously—that's a given. She read you better than I could, and she was spot on today. Love is a two-way street, dear, and I'm afraid I've been forcing you down a one-way since I asked you to come on the show."

"I aced my driver's exam," James supplied.

"That's not remotely true, and stop making excuses for me. I'm your mum but I'm also human, so I'm allowed to make mistakes and then apologize. So this is me, apologizing, for making you so unhappy."

James's face felt like it was on fire. His mum had apologized for many things in his life, including that time he had walked in on a very kinky sex scene between her and his dad, but rarely as openly and honestly as this.

With his free hand, he meekly patted hers, which were still clasped around one of his. "There, there?" he tried because even though this was what he'd wanted, this was a lot and kind of embarrassing and it needed to be over now.

"The traditional response is I forgive you." She hesitated. "If you do, at least."

"Yeah," he said quickly, looking away toward the window. "Now can I have my hand back?"

"Only if you promise to stay for tea, even though I know you're desperate to go tell Algernon all about today."

James sighed, and wiggled his hand free. "Yes, Mum, I promise."

"There's a dear. We need to keep you fed and well cared for, or the girl of your dreams will lose interest."

"I can't imagine Isabella doing that over some minor fatigue."

Someone knocked on the door.

"That's the tea, then," Euphemia said airily.

While she held the door for the staff person bearing a silver tray with tea and scones, James had a sudden thought.

"Mum," he said, placing a hand on her arm. "How quickly can you get Lily some aloe and mosquito bite cream?"

Euphemia's only response was to beam.

---

Calling Mary Macdonald back to cancel the meeting proved a less desolate experience than Lily had expected.

Her potential future editor bellowed with laughter down the phone.

"They made you do the fucking Bachelor?!" she practically screamed, before letting another whopper of a laugh reverberate down the line. "That's amazing! Fucking amazing. When's it airing so I can set it to record?"

Lily threw a look at Beatrice. She had been expecting some amusement when she confessed the truth behind her latest work-in-progress, but Mary had seemed smartly professional during their previous conversation. Now she was swearing like a sailor and cackling fit to kill.

"In the winter, I think?" Lily tentatively offered. "But disregarding all of that, I just need you to know that when I initially made the appointment I was certain that I'd get kicked off in time for—"

"Why were you certain?" Mary interrupted.

"Er..." She looked to Beatrice again for help, but her friend only shrugged. "I had a date with the bachelor scheduled, and I sort of...picked a fight with him during so he'd kick me out."

Mary snorted. "That was ballsy of you."

"Thanks?"

"What'd he do when you started this fight?"

"Got mad," said Lily quietly. "Argued back. Randomly gave me a rose afterwards."

Another trumpet-blast of laughter in her ear. "This is the best thing I've heard all day. Is he fit?"

"I mean…" The unbidden image of a certain crooked grin of his popped into her head. "Yes?"

"Then you better get yourself some, if only for my continued amusement," Mary said. "Listen, Meadowes isn't leaving for another eight weeks and I'm really keen to meet with you before I have to advertise for the position. Assuming you do go all the way with this thing, will you be out in plenty of time for us to catch up for an interview?"

"Oh, God, absolutely. Yes." Lily nodded frantically at Beatrice and her friend began to cheer silently, throwing herself backwards on her bed and kicking her legs in the air. "A few more weeks at most."

"Right. Fab. As you were, then. And send me your article when it's done. I'm dying to read it."

That was one problem solved.

Owing mostly to her relief at having not screwed her shot at the job of her dreams, Lily slept a lot better that night than she had originally expected, though the mosquito cream and aloe vera gel that she'd been given also improved her situation. Euphemia Potter had brought them to the room in person, alongside a box of fancy macarons, countless observations on Lily's wit, beauty, and intelligence, and a dinner invitation to her home in Belgravia after the competition ended.

It had been a strange visit, and Lily—still a little miffed that she was the only one who had noticed how awful things had been for James—had felt as if she ought to have been less receptive to Euphemia's charms. It was difficult, though, to harden her heart against a person so determined to impress upon Lily that she was a singular young woman fit for the gleaming marble floors and glorious sunbursts of a tropical palace.

It was all a little over-the-top, but a compliment was a compliment.

Besides, the macarons were delicious.

If only her son were as willing to forgive as his mother, after what Lily had made him endure.

Though word tended to get around in such pressurized containers as the one they were all living in, miraculously, the sun dipped and rose without incident. Lily woke the next morning to discover that none of the other girls had discovered the truth of what happened between her and James during their date. They'd all bought her story about illness without question, and Bonnie had even overheard Wendy suggesting that James was deeply kind to have presented Lily with a rose simply because she was feeling unwell.

Unless James seriously believed Lily's mind to be addled, it was highly unlikely that Wendy had hit on a single iota of truth.

Over breakfast, she tried her best to worm her way out of the group date—apologizing to him in front of the rest of the girls was not how she wanted to go about it—but Rita had regained some of her snappishness, and staunchly insisted that she take part.

Lily almost skipped out anyway, intending to blame her dwindling cold symptoms, but then the girls were told that the day's activity was a professional dance class. Beatrice was immediately catapulted into the seventh heaven of delight, suffused with an intense joy which she claimed could be marred by only one thing: the untimely absence of her little red hen.

"Just be cool about it," Bea instructed from the floor, her legs stretched into an elegant split. All six women had gathered in the castle ballroom in their trainers and leggings—or in Helena's case, their gold sequined jumpsuits. "Cool and casual. You know how to dance, right?"

"Um," said Lily, wondering what Beatrice, who had been taking ballet lessons since she could walk, would consider to be an acceptable level of ability. "I can moonwalk pretty well?"

"Fuck off, that's amazing!"

"Language!" Rita cried, from the head of the room, where she was conversing with their instructor, a short but oddly muscular man in a tight white t-shirt. "Remember, the cameras are rolling!"

Lily took a quick glance at Peter in the corner, and he sent a happy wave her way. His latest text had confirmed that Euphemia made Rita apologize for her repeated threats to sack him.

At least someone's lot had been improved by yesterday's outburst.

"I feel sick," said Lily quietly.

"With cold?"

"No, with anxiety," she clarified, her eyes fixed on the door through which James was due to appear. Her stomach was churning like she'd just been through her fourth consecutive ride on a rickety wooden roller coaster. He was going to walk in at any minute, mad at her, probably, and she had no idea how to take it from there. "Like, terrified sick. This-is-the-worst sick."

"At least it's not pregnancy sick," said Beatrice.

"I don't think I'd still be here if I was pregnancy sick."

"Are you kidding?" Beatrice scoffed, and hopped to her feet with the sprightliness of a live wire. "Rita would try to pass the kid off as James's and force you to reenact the conception."

"She'd probably try to film the birth."

"Imagine trying to push out a kid with Bozo pointing his camera at your business."

Lily's laughter, which exploded in a peal that made everyone around her jump, was cut abruptly and tragically short by the arrival of James and Remus, who could not have picked a less suitable time to walk into the room.

Her delicate, queasy stomach flipped right over.

His eyes found hers at once.

He stared at her, and she stared back, and they kept on staring, on and on through Remus's introduction, and their dance teacher's monologue about "finding their passion" and "living the beat," until finally, Beatrice poked her firmly in the side and Lily realized, to her great shame, that all the other girls were watching her with undisguised interest.

They must have looked like a pair of deer caught in the most dazzling of headlights.

So much for playing it cool.

Lily had already known that James Potter was not subtle—five minutes spent in his company would lead any vaguely observant person to the same conclusion—but she had assumed she could do a better job of keeping it all under wraps.

The girls probably thought that she was in love with him. The rumours this would spur would likely be interesting.

She blamed James entirely for this. He should have had the decency to catch her at a solemn, subdued moment, not cracking up at a joke that inadvertently involved their fictional baby.

His fault. Not hers.

Their instructor called out for the first girl to come forward. Luckily, Wendy's name sat atop Rita's list. While she bounced up to begin her lesson, Lily sat on the floor next to Beatrice and stared resolutely down at her feet, letting her friend mutter comments and criticisms in her ear without really catching much of what was happening. Apparently, Wendy wouldn't know proper form if it kicked her in the tits, and James was about as graceful a dancer as a flailing tube man outside a car dealership.

It didn't seem to matter to Bea that all of her jibes were being picked up by a microphone.

Lily wasn't particularly interested in any of the muttered asides—there was a deeply interesting floor to consider—but Remus, who had pulled up a spot next to Beatrice, was chuckling appreciatively at her many comments. She didn't have to worry that she was denying her friend an audience.

After Wendy, however, came an all-too-quick downfall. Helena was partnered with James next, and quickly called a halt to the proceedings when she started to complain that she wasn't wearing the right shoes, and therefore her feet were hurting. Rita agreed to let her run to her room and select some appropriate footwear, and while she did so, James was allowed a couple of minutes to take a breather.

Lily assumed that he would sit next to Isabella, who had taken a spot on a rug some way away.

She didn't notice him heading in her direction until he slid down to the floor beside her.

"Did you get the mosquito cream and the aloe?" he asked.

She nodded without looking at him, her heart thumping stupidly loudly, as if they were meeting at adjacent tables in a bar to conduct a secret drug deal. "Your mum brought them to my room last night."

"Good," he said. Then he plucked at a loose thread on his trousers, but it didn't come out. He ended up flicking his finger at it over and over.

She ended up watching its progress for far too long.

After a while, he asked, "And how's your cold?"

"Getting slowly better," she said. "And you? How are you doing?"

She wondered if all secret drug deals were this awkward and laced with regret.

Probably. They were drug deals.

He stopped playing with the thread, and instead just held it taut between two fingers. "I'm...improved." She risked a glance at him, just as he gave her a sidelong look. "Thanks to you."

That was not what she had expected to hear.

Her heart was thudding still, but for an entirely new reason.

Lily swallowed air before she spoke again. Her mouth felt a little dry. "Really?"

He dropped the thread and rested his elbows on his propped up knees, letting his hands dangle down in between. "Yeah. It—well. Suffice it to say I had some, er, interesting conversations with a certain undersea hazard. And, weirdly enough, my mum."

Her thumping heart skittered about for a moment, unsure of what to do.

The last thing Lily had anticipated was for James to feel as if her inelegant tirade had brought about any kind of positive change for him. Even if it had, she had been so unkind to him that he was under no obligation to thank or even inform her. He would have been perfectly justified in keeping that to himself.

The fact that he hadn't made her feel…really bloody happy actually.

What it didn't do was excuse her behavior.

"Well, that's—okay. Good, I guess?" She let out a small huff of air. "I mean, I'm really happy to hear that, even though it kind of shits on the groveling apology I had planned."

"You can still proceed with that, if you like. But it's not—" He paused and made a thoughtful noise. "I think I understand why you did it that way. Or I can at least kind of get it."

"It's really nice of you to say that, but I don't deserve to hide behind excuses," she said, looking out across the room. "I feel like—well, I feel like a total prat, honestly. I mean, I meant what I said but I said it in the worst possible way, and you didn't deserve to be attacked like that."

"Thanks," he said. "Both for the apology and, well, for everything yesterday that wasn't an insult."

"Was any part of it not an insult? It's all a horrible blur of shame right now, like how I feel when I take back a library book late, only multiplied by about forty because at least the library book was nicely treated in my care."

"You think I'm not some playboy who goes through women like toilet paper. Or something like that. And that I'm fit and charming." He let out the faintest of laughs. "The angriest compliments I've ever received in my life, to be honest. And my mum once shouted at me for playing marvelously and scoring the winning goal in a football match because I'd played on a sprained foot but hadn't told anyone."

"Well, she should have, that's wildly irresponsible," said Lily flatly, and laughed, not just at how typical it was of her to zero in on the silly thing he'd done, which surely merited a telling-off, but because he had laughed. The knot of tension she carried in her chest allayed a little. "I did mean the nice stuff, though. I think you're a pretty easy person to like, and I really do want to be mates." She slanted a faint smile his way. "Not just for Algernon, either."

"That's good, since I'd love to have someone as thoughtful as you as a mate." He vigorously ruffled one hand through his gloriously unkempt hair. "Yesterday, when my mum was apologizing for putting me through all this, she started talking about how love is a two-way street, and—"

"You did all of this for your mother?"

"Er," he said. "Yeah. It's her dying wish."

"What?" She gaped at him. "Your mum is dying?"

"Oh, no," he added quickly. "It's just the excuse she gave me. Since we're all dying, technically… Yeah, she's a bit mad. Especially about reality TV." He shrugged. "Good news is she's set on keeping a better eye on me now, thanks to you."

"Right," she said, gazing numbly him as she tried to comprehend the idea of a mother who went to such extreme lengths for such strange reasons. "Shit." She absently scratched at a bite on her arm. "I mean, when she came to see me last night I thought she was being a bit too generous with her compliments, but I guess if she's that committed to theatricality, it kind of explains it."

"She is 1000 percent committed." He dropped his voice a notch. "I, of course, luckily escaped inheriting that over-the-top gene."

"Try telling that to all the fish you put in therapy with your crazy thrashing."

He sat up straighter, stretching his knees out flat in front of him. "That was sheer pragmatism! How else was I supposed to help you escape—well. You know," he said with a meaningful look.

"You know you can say the word 'frog' without fear that I'll sink away into a dead faint, right?"

"I don't think you're fragile, I just didn't think you wanted everyone in the country to know about your worst fears."

"Well, that's extremely considerate, but don't worry about me. I'm a big, tough girl, and I can handle the teasing." She nudged him gently with her elbow, and gave him a tentative smile. "We're good now, aren't we? Like, mates, or whatever?"

"Oh yeah." He nudged her back. "Absolutely."

He had forgiven her, and she doubted they'd ever be mates in any real, non-reality-television-bubble sense, but still, she had helped. Some good had managed to come from yesterday's fiasco.

The day was heading towards a win for her, all in all.

Sadly for them both, but particularly James, the doors to the ballroom burst open and Helena reappeared on the scene. She'd changed into a pair of simple flats and, for reasons only she would ever understand, a flapper headband.

"I'm here!" she announced to the room at large, as if anyone could have missed her noisy arrival, though several people were certainly trying their hardest.

"Alas," said Lily, with a despairing sigh, "your most adoring fan awaits your attention. We'll have to work out our secret handshake later."

He snapped his head toward her. "Can we also have secret codenames?" he asked eagerly.

"Obviously," she agreed. "How else are we going to escape this place and start our brand-new lives as non-misogynistic secret agents?"

His hazel eyes were alight behind his glasses as he pushed himself to his feet. When he was standing, he started backing away while pointing at her, saying, "I'm holding you to that, Evans."

"Holding me to what?" she said loudly, and tapped the side of her nose. He would surely know that covertness was an invaluable tool in the arsenal of any spy.

James tapped his nose in response, grinning at the same time, and finally spun away from her.

He looked real cute when he smiled like that.

No doubt he was perfectly aware of it.

Ridiculous man, she thought, smiling fondly at his retreating back…

...until a delicate clearing of the throat from Bea made her turn her head, only to see that she was being watched, again, by all four of the waiting girls, not to mention Remus and a couple of the production staff.

"What?" she muttered to Beatrice, trying to look as if she had no idea what everyone was staring at, but failing on account of the warmth blossoming in her cheeks, and that same stupid smile that stubbornly persisted in having its day in the sun.

She pressed her lips together. Better.

"You, like, love him," said Beatrice flatly.

"You're, like, overdramatic," Lily retorted.

"That's totally fine by me," said Bea, and extended her hand towards the dance floor, where James was looking at Helena's gyrating body as if he was silently contemplating a life of celibacy. "I know how much you adore dramatic people."

Lily hit her friend on the nose with the end of her own braid.

---

With most of the crazier ladies gone, James found the group date wasn't nearly as painful as previous ones. Except for when Helena Hodge stepped on his feet, of course, but that was minor compared to basically everything else she had ever done to him.

After Helena came Lily, who had no prior experience but was pretty quick about picking things up. She had to keep explaining the moves to him and helping him keep the beat by counting out loud. Eventually James told her she should just take the lead.

If he were someone else, his masculinity would have taken a grievous wound to discover how much better he was at following salsa moves than leading them. Fortunately, he was himself. And Lily, for her part, managed to keep sending him into more complicated positions with elan while they both laughed from the sheer delight of having a good time.

She wasn't technically the best dancer, though. Unsurprisingly, fitness instructor Isabella Marks already knew a decent amount of salsa dancing. James would've loved to have seen someone actually skilled manage it with her, if it wouldn't have made him dead jealous.

"Hey," he said, after knocking his knee into hers for the fifth time, "why don't you try leading?"

"Oh," she said, her eyes going wide. "I couldn't. I don't know how."

"I'm sure you can figure it out. You know hell of a lot more than I do about salsa."

"It's just—it's not right," she said, endearingly innocent. "That's not how salsa works."

James tried to catch Lily's eye over Isabella's shoulder, but Lily was too busy watching Bea and Remus practice their salsa off-camera.

This was surprising, both because James hadn't seen any of the ladies interact with the hosts—apart from Charlene and traitorous Sirius—and because he'd had no bloody clue Remus knew how to salsa.

And Remus knew how to salsa.

"He's been holding out on me," James muttered as he tried to restart the sequence with Isabella. "He should've taken me to his lessons all along so that now I'd now be a salsa master, too. The dancing kind, I mean." He paused. "I wonder if there are classes where you can work on both the moves and the dish. Obviously not at the same time, though. Unless…"

"It's all right," Isabella told him. "We'll work on those things together."

He smiled at her, but of course doing so made him forget about his feet, and he brought down his trainer directly on top of her flats.

Her noise of pain was definitely not faked.

He got to apologize later at the cocktail party, and she naturally forgave him immediately.

"You didn't mean to step on me," she said as they sat in the fairy-lit grotto, angled toward each other with their hands intertwined. "I can't hold that against you."

The thing was, though, she added a small, subtle stress on the word that.

"Is something else bothering you?" he asked.

"Well," she said shyly, "I don't like being the jealous girl, but…"

"Wait. Who would you possibly be jealous of?"

"Well, it's just...you've been so chummy with Lily and she's wonderful, so I wouldn't be surprised if you—well."

James tucked a strand of hair behind Isabella's ear. "Lily is a mate. Seriously. If you'd heard the fight she picked with me on our date, you wouldn't be so worried."

"You fought?"

"I mean, sort of? It's complicated."

"But you gave her a rose anyway?"

"Yeah, because—it made sense, promise. Besides, she asked me to keep her around for Bea's sake."

Isabella smiled. "Aw, that's so sweet."

"I know. They're inseparable." He pecked her cheek. "Thanks for being straightforward. You make me feel like I don't need to worry about things."

"I don't know why I was worried. Lily was such a dear, making sure I knew what really happened when Rita made that mistake about why they switched the date days."

Isabella was even willing to believe the best in Rita. Incredible.

"At least I hope she made a mistake," Isabella added, sounding puzzled. "Because otherwise—well. Never mind. It doesn't matter what I think."

"No," James said, "it absolutely does. What were you going to say?"

She shook her head. "It's just the champagne talking. Let's talk about something else."

So they did.

They talked about being brown people in England and Arsenal's coaching decisions and the best Thai restaurants in London. She spoke with enthusiasm about her fitness classes and the wonderful progress her students had made. She described her two brothers and explained that all three of them always went home for Sunday dinner with their parents.

James sat rapt through it all. There was just something about listening to people talk earnestly about their lives and the things they cared most about.

The fairy-lights definitely made it more special than usual, though.

The constant cameras, less so.

Eventually Rita loudly cleared her throat, which was a much better method than her former "drag James around like a psychotic child with a tortured stuffed animal" approach.

He kissed Isabella's cheek in farewell, and followed Rita to Lily, who stood yet again at the buffet table.

No, that wasn't fair. Last time she'd been under the buffet table, so it wasn't really again. This time she was upright and everything.

Mostly. As he approached, she tilted just a bit sideways, catching her balance on the table with her free hand. Her other held a delicate champagne glass.

He heard her sigh loudly as she gazed down at the buffet, lips oddly downturned.

"You've a spread of food before you," he commented as he stepped next to her, "a drink in your hand, and yet you look forlorn. What gives?"

Lily took her time filling her lungs with air, then let it all out in a short, impatient breath.

"I'm pining," she said wistfully.

He took in the wilting garnish leaves that comprised more of the buffet than actual foods. "If you're after a bacon sandwich, I've found the kitchen less than well equipped. Much to my chagrin."

"Actually, I was pining for a croissant." She glanced sideways at him. "Now I'm pining for a croissant and a bacon sandwich, which is exponentially worse, and I don't thank you for it."

"A croissant? Dear God, why would you want something French?"

"Why do you sound more offended by that than you were about the entire argument we had the other day?"

"Have you ever been to France?" He scoffed. "Smug bastards, all of them." He looked at her meaningfully. "All of them."

Lily swung around to face him fully, but seemed to do it too quickly, and had to pause, grab the table, and unspin just slightly.

It took a lot not to laugh. Rita tried to liquor them all up constantly, but Lily had always been the sensible one in the room refusing to give in.

"I feel like there's something deep and dark that you're not telling me about your beef with France, because they make excellent bread, and are therefore above such base hatred," she said, eyeing him with great suspicion. "Unless you hate bread, but you don't, because you like bacon sandwiches." She tapped the side of her head with one finger. "I'm dead clever, me."

"Well deduced, Tipsy Sherlock Holmes." He added in a conspiratorial tone, "Or should I say, Ruby Raptor."

"I am not tipsy, as a matter of fact, you'll find I'm perfectly in control of my ment—" She paused mid-wave of her champagne glass. The booze-delay was strong in this one. "Ruby what?"

"Raptor. As in veloci. It's a hell of a lot easier to say than vermillion vixen. And who doesn't both love and fear dinosaurs?"

"Everyone should love and fear me," she replied, and set her mostly-empty glass down on the table with some difficulty. It was getting very, very hard for James to repress even a snicker. "What was it that inspired you, my bloodthirsty scavenging, my disemboweling claw, or my cold, dead eyes? I'd like to know for the sake of posterity."

He did let himself laugh then. "The alliteration with ruby, mostly. And because dinosaurs are wicked cool."

"I was hoping you'd opt for my excellent disembowelment record, but I'll set—" She propped her hands on her hips and frowned at something off to the left which had distracted her. "If you take one step closer, Helena Hodge, I swear to God I'll snog the face off him right this instant."

James found himself momentarily stunned into silence while his brain conjured tantalizing images, and the rest of his body started to process and react accordingly.

He shoved the thought away and forced himself to turn sideways, where he found Helena stalking towards the table as if righteously peeved. She stopped in her tracks and pointed a wavering, drunken finger at Lily.

"You hussy," Helena began hotly. "You're not even his type!"

James's sharp "Ha!" likely made it across the room, through the open (and stupidly) French doors onto the patio, and halfway across the garden.

Lily did not seem to have noticed, still staring down Helena and winning handily. "He doesn't have a type," she retorted. This was actually spot on—the only "type" he had was women who liked cats, but it was shocking to hear Lily name something he'd only recently begun to realize himself. "And if he did," Lily continued, "it wouldn't be handsy prowlers like you who don't understand consent and split their own chins open while fucking canoeing."

The booze had dulled Lily's balance, but impressively not her enunciation or wit.

Helena's hands tightened into claws, as though preparing to tackle Lily into the buffet table—James prepared to intervene for both the sake of Lily and the admittedly decent cheese platter he'd hoped to sample—but when Lily arched a cool eyebrow, Helena stood down.

With a murmured, "Typical Scorpio," Helena turned on her dangerously wobbly high-heels and tottered unsteadily away.

James shook his head, laughing, and picked up a piece of cheese.

"What a loon," Lily said happily, stealing the cube from his hand. "I'm not even a Scorpio."

He feigned an offended look. "There's an entire world of cheese arrayed right in front of us, free for the taking, and you resort to taking the one in my hand?"

"I figured that you wouldn't mind sharing, seeing as how I just saved you from Handsy Hodge, quite valiantly, I might add," she said, with a smile that would have made him relent if he had been offended. She reached up and landed a gentle pat against his cheek. "You poor, sweet babe. Helena's like a wild animal—senses your fear. You've got to come at her from a position of strength."

"Considering a strong breeze could tip you over right now, Ruby Raptor, I don't know that you're in a place to talk about positions of strength."

"Oh, you're so welcome for the help, Agent Melodrama. Shall I call her back and have you deal with her alone?"

He twisted his torso and awkwardly gestured along the length of his back. "I see you haven't met my new backbone. Funny, since it's been strengthened by you." He untwisted himself and faced her again. "There's a suggested amendment to your presumptuous and inaccurate codename for me: Agent Strongback."

If Lily had been ruminating upon a witty comeback—though James was rather inclined to believe that she was quick enough to pull her retorts from thin air on the fly—it quickly lost itself in the distinctive raspberry blush that stole across her cheeks.

"I can't condone the name Strongback. It gives off the impression that you're a lot more muscular than you are," she said after a pause, with a crease between her brows that hinted at an unexpressed question. "How about you go for something a bit more film noir, like Jack Diamond? That sounds cool, and if I'm a ruby, we might as well be a matching set."

James's heart lurched.

Jack. Diamond.

Jack Fucking Diamond.

It was simple and perfect and everything he'd never known he wanted in a nickname.

He lunged forward, throwing his arms around her and pulling her into a crushing hug, her arms pinned to her sides.

"Oh," she said faintly, a soft noise of surprise in his ear.

He pulled back and gripped her shoulders. "That. Is. Brilliant!" he said, grinning and gazing into her magnetic eyes. "Ruby Raptor and Jack Diamond. That's a movie franchise right there, it is. Or at least a standalone."

She gazed back at him, her lips slightly parted, as his heartbeat notched a bit closer to normal. She smelled nice, almost floral.

In the corner of his eye, a cameraman crept closer, zooming in on their close embrace.

Right. Shit. Television: they were on it.

He dropped his hands to his sides, knotting them into fists momentarily and then forcing them unclenched. Because he was cool as a cucumber, he was, and this was not the sort of moment he wanted to share with millions of his most distant acquaintances.

"I'd make some quip about how disproportionate your excitement is, but I really like this idea," said Lily breezily, though the pretty pink color in her cheeks was sweeping merrily along her throat. "What do you envision happening in this movie? Algernon's part of it, right? I definitely think he could pull off a jaunty, cat-sized fedora."

James made a serious effort at studying the cheeses, pretending to suss out which kinds were present, his thoughts definitely not anything of interest for the camera. "Algernon would probably tear the hat to shreds—and hats are insanitary anyway—but he'd definitely rock a black bow tie."

"Bow ties are cool, according to Eleven."

He snapped around to face her, mouth slipping into a grin. "The only way that could be a more trustworthy statement is if Ten had said it."

"You mean the fourth Doctor, right?" she said smartly. "Don't worry, I'm sure the cameras will edit out the egregious error you just made. You wouldn't want to embarrass yourself on national television."

"Four? Four? You must never have seen Ten, because once you see him shouting against his impending demise, that scene is burned into your soul."

"Ten has Four beat in one area: hair, which explains why you like him so much, which is really rather vain, and unfair on all us poor women who can't self-insert until Jodie's episodes air and she trounces all of them."

"Four's fashion choices are downright dangerous. He could have tripped over that scarf at any moment and choked to death."

"There you go again, self-inserting to prop up your flagging argument. Just because you can't complete a simple dance lesson without clumsily treading on my feet six times—"

"It was three, max!"

"I'm afraid you've just caught yourself in an easily disprovable lie, Potter," she sighed, and pointed to the camera that hung near them still, as if poised for James to pounce on her again. "If we're really to be a crime-fighting duo, I'm going to have to hold you to a far higher standard than that, so try harder next time, thank you."

A funny sort of feeling threaded its way through his chest, tense but warm, sending his pulse rocketing back up.

He found himself inexplicably grinning.

"Apologies," he said. "You're right, that's not my best. I'd get you some croissants as an apology but I can't endorse the French like that. You understand."

"Lucky for us both that you like Isabella, then. A basic willingness to get me a croissant now and then is something I'd quite like in a boyfriend," she said with a laugh, then nodded towards a spot behind James's back. "Speaking of, I think she's missing you."

He looked over his shoulder at once to find Isabella watching him longingly from across the room. For some reason his stomach turned, as though he'd been caught in some nefarious act, instead of simply talking to someone else as required by the show. He sent her a small, overly frantic wave.

"Oh, er," he told Lily, "yeah. Probably. But you know the sea witch—I've got to talk to everyone. Which is why I'm talking to you, of course."

He wasn't sure if he imagined the dark look that crossed her face, but it left as quickly as it came, replaced by a tight, rather pitying smile.

"Of course," Lily agreed. "Now you've put in your Rita-mandated time with me, you can move onwards and upwards, hopefully in the direction of a bed and adequate air conditioning."

"Right. Yeah." His hand found its way into his hair, his elbow pointed toward the ceiling. "Er, enjoy your day off tomorrow, or whatever."

"Mmm." She sounded rather indifferent. "G'night, James."

She spun lightly on the tips of her toes and left, moving in the direction of the glossy grand piano, where Beatrice and Remus were sitting together. James stayed stuck in place for a moment, eyes trailing after her, unable to do anything but watch.

Lily didn't so much as glance over her shoulder.

"Perfect," Rita announced.

"Hm?" said James, drawn out of his reverie. "Oh, er, good?" He looked around the room. "Who's up next, then?"

---

"Wow," was Lily's final assessment.

"I know," said Beatrice proudly. "Naturals, we are both."

"No, I meant, wow, that was terrible, and you should both stick to salsa dancing. That you can do without making me want to put my head through a plate glass window."

Remus laughed, and ducked his head in modest acceptance of his failures. Beatrice immediately slammed her fingers into multiple piano keys in a dramatic imitation of affront, sending a loud, discordant noise shuddering through the room. Several people jumped in fright.

"How dare you slight me in this impertinent manner?" she denounced, with narrowed, disapproving eyes. "I'd like to see you do any better."

"Better than the butchered rendition of Chopsticks you two just insulted me with? Yeah, I think I can." Lily shoved lightly at Bea's bare shoulder. Standing on her tipsy feet was beginning to feel like a chore. "Up. Come on. You too, Lupin."

Remus slid off the piano bench at once, but Beatrice mutinously stood her ground.

Sat her ground, really.

Lily didn't much care if she had to share a seat—the unusually long bench had had clearly been put there with romantic duets in mind—so she plopped down next to Beatrice and nudged her over with a little more force than was needed.

"Watch it, Evans!" Bea cried, but shifted over to make room anyway. "What makes you think you can top my musical stylings? I'm a voice coach, yeah? Naturally gifted."

"A voice coach who plays piano like she's got sausages for fingers. What a sad tale," said Lily sweetly. "Formidable an opponent as I'm sure you are, I think I can dredge up something from eight years of lessons to help me beat you."

Bea frowned at her. "You can actually play piano?"

"Yeah, I can, and I'm bloody good at it, too."

"Like, properly?"

Lily shrugged, rotating her left wrist back and forth. "I've got my nan's old baby in my room at home. It's old and crap, and a bitch to get up two flights of stairs, but I won't be without her."

Beatrice made a small, curious sound under her breath.

"I'll bring it with me when we get our flat, and teach you to play, if you like," Lily offered, and smiled up at Remus. "You, too, since you'll be living so close by."

"I'm very much obliged," said Remus, with his hands in his front pockets. "Is there any reason why you haven't mentioned this before? The piano's been sitting here the whole time."

They had been getting filmed for television this whole time, she wanted to point out, and she wasn't desperate for attention.

That didn't seem like such an issue after four champagnes.

She inclined her head towards the nearest visible camera. "Didn't want to show off."

"But now you do?" said Beatrice.

"But now I do."

"I see." Beatrice spun in her seat and looked up at Remus. "She's peacocking."

"I am not peacocking."

"I knew you liked him. Knew it in my tubes."

"Amazingly, Bea, though I had a multitude of reasons to learn piano, impressing boys was never one of them," said Lily disinterestedly, and picked up the book of sheet music that sat on the shelf, "especially not that boy, so you can send your fallopian tubes my sincerest apologies."

All of the pieces in the book appeared to be slow and mournful, which was exactly the opposite of what Lily wanted. The last thing she felt prepared to do was serenade the room, and him, and her, with something cloyingly sappy and romantic, as if they were all living in a Twilight book and she was one of James's strange, supportive, pallid vampire siblings.

God. Isabella even had the right name for the job.

Lily was pretty sure she could play any number of upbeat pieces from memory alone, and that would simply have to do. If all the other girls got to swan around the mansion feeling bloody brilliant about themselves all night, tossing back drinks and winking coyly at the cameras, she deserved a shot at the same sensation.

Clearly, the best she was going to get from James was confirmation that she'd been foisted upon him by Rita Skeeter, and a blokey comparison to a bloody dinosaur.

A velociraptor, of all things.

Dinosaurs were wicked cool, it was true, and she understood the compliment it implied, but he might as well have punched her in the shoulder and referred to her as dude for all the good it had done her. The resulting effect would have been exactly the same.

This wasn't supposed to bother her.

It really pissed her off that it did.

She'd unpack it all in the morning, a morning that would dawn in this castle, thanks to the rose that sat in a borrowed vase in her room, hell-bent on vexing and confusing her all beyond reason. Until then, she would do something that made her feel good, enjoy the free champagne, and not look at James Potter again for the rest of the night.

Even if he tried to catch her eye, or shot that stupid, crooked smile at her, or said something utterly bizarre about the French.

Even then.

"What boy?" said Beatrice innocently.

"Don't be cute."

"I'm always cute," Bea countered, "and you can admit how you feel, you know. The most self-actualized among us can see the importance of honest expression."

"You can admit to whatever you like," said Lily, and replaced the book on its shelf. "I don't feel the way you think I feel and you're the one who can't accept it, so I reckon I'm more than self-actualized enough for the both of us."

But she reached over and tapped three fingers against the back of Beatrice's hand, one after the other.

Her friend nodded sagely, and said no more on the subject.

Bullshit, Lily thought.

This whole bloody thing was bullshit.