EVANS 'STUMPS' SNAPE IN LATEST STRICTLY DRAMA!
By R. Skeeter for Daily Mail Online
All any Strictly fan was able to talk about on Friday was Lily Evans' Reddit adventures, and for good reason as the usually-tight-lipped dancing Firecracker lived up to her nickname, letting loose on her rumoured paramour Severus Snape and giving her full support for beleaguered dance partner James Potter. Sources close to the pro dancer say she was "fed up with the assumptions everyone was making" and that she was "desperate to set the record straight". And set the record straight she did—Reddit and Twitter were all aflutter in the aftermath!
Well, you know me, Strictly fans, I always have to get both sides of a story, so I reached out to Tesla UK's Snape to ask him for his thoughts on Evans' remarks. On Sunday, he told me, "Relationships are complicated and ours is no exception." He added, when asked about Potter's part in all this, "It's such a shame when someone can be sucked in by a bully and a fraud."
So, does that mean that Lily and Severus aren't as clear cut as she made it seem? Or is he just a bitter friend who wishes he was more? Now that The Firecracker seems to have stopped censoring herself, we may well find out sooner than we think! Watch this space, Strictly fans…
OfficialLevans posted one new photo
London street and coffee cup
1) True, it's a bit of a grey day in London, but… 2) JP is back at training today! Going to ply him with ginger shots and Tangfastics to keep him upright as we learn our new dance. And 3) yes, I've seen the Skeeter article. Only thing that's complicated about our r'ship is his refusal to be honest. #anewweek #havenotamnotwillnotdatethatman #tangfasticsforthecure
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strictlysuperfan007 Yes queen speak your truth! No more gaslighting!
kebejls always got major creep vibes from ss. you're well rid of him!
bbcstrictly · 11m · It's our favourite time of the week - yes, it's dance & song reveal time! First up, OfficialJamesPotter and Lily Evans are dancing a romantic rumba to Little Mix's Secret Love Song Pt II. Swoon! #scd22
domejamespotter · 9m · bbcstrictly omg this is going to be EPIC! can't wait to see it!
"They showed your rehearsal footage on It Takes Two last night." No hello, no how are you; this apparently is how his mother starts a conversation now. She had FaceTimed him and she isn't even looking at the screen—busily making dinner, from what he can see. "Goodness me, it was rather saucy!"
"Hi, mum," James replies, glancing over his shoulder; they're still rehearsing, and he's not enamoured with the idea of Lily being subjected to every thought that passes through his mother's mind. "I'm much better, thanks for asking. How are you?"
"Don't take that tone with me, young man," she waves a spatula briefly, threateningly, at the camera. "And I know you're better, you've been texting much more coherently, darling."
"Well," he sighs, knowing when he has lost. "That's good, I suppose."
"Coherence is always a good thing," Euphemia agrees. "Anyway, as I was saying—that rumba! Almost too indecent for broadcast, that's what I told your father!"
"She did," Fleamont confirms distantly, somewhere off screen. "Unfortunately."
James isn't sure where to look. It helps that his mum isn't giving him her full attention, now being in the process of what looks like making home-made pasta, but he feels very aware of Lily slouching on the sofa at the other end of the dance studio, apparently engrossed on her phone. Maybe he's lucky and she can't hear much of their conversation.
(You never know.)
"That's the style of the dance, mum," he points out, lowering his voice just in case. "It's supposed to be…romantic."
They've only been rehearsing for a few days, but truthfully, what his mum is saying is no surprise. The rumba had been described by the choreographer as 'the dance of love' and he soon realised why: it was full of swaying hips, lingering touches, sensuous movement…
And he isn't a prude. Far from it. But he is painfully aware of his growing feelings for his dance partner, moving away from his initial confusion into something that is stressful for a different reason. There's a tension between them that feels different from what was there the first few weeks, a tension that has only blossomed, deepened, since her visit to his flat last week. The change, as Remus very reasonably pointed out, is that now James has to confront the possibility that she might have feelings, too. Feelings that aren't blind hatred, anyway.
If James were able to face the evidence with a calm head, he'd probably agree. The fact that she had listened to him sleep over the phone; that she'd sat there watching an old film with him; her Reddit rant and her Instagram posts. And that's all without even considering the way she's been looking at him in rehearsals this week. The heat between them…there's no way it can just be in his imagination. Or just for the dance. Nobody could fake that.
Could they?
Trouble is, he can't face this all with a calm head, because—well, he really bloody likes her. She's beautiful, and kind, and a great teacher, and she's funny, and now that she doesn't hate him so viscerally and so visibly 80% of the time, he gets to actually get to know her. It's no surprise to him that Snape is having trouble letting her go. She's amazing.
And although James is decently handsome himself, and personable, and a cricketing star with his own devoted fanbase, something about her makes that all fade away. He feels like he's a fumbling teen again, desperate to impress and riddled with self-doubt.
If he had the time for therapy, it would probably make for an interesting discussion.
"Romantic is one thing, darling," his mum says cheerfully. "You two look like you're about to drag each other off to bed. Or to that sofa at the end of your rehearsal space."
James swallows, hard, and does not look at said sofa, where Lily still lounges. It feels like that would be asking for trouble.
"Hopefully the dance is good enough to keep us in one more week," he says instead. His voice, he realises, sounds a bit strained. "It'd be a miracle to get to the final, but…if we can..."
"Oh, I'm sure you will, dear," Euphemia replies. "You're such a strong pairing, and that chap from that boy band has been skating by on fan votes and little else for far too long…poor Natalia, she always gets paired up with a dud…"
"Right," James nods, although he has no idea if it's true. "I'd better go, mum, we've only got another hour or so before we have to give the space back."
"Give my love to Lily, won't you?" He nods, again, although he is quite sure he will not be doing that. As if things aren't awkward enough. "We'll be down on Friday morning, perhaps we can pop in to rehearsals? Sirius is taking us out for lunch, but we'll have a few free hours—"
"Phie, darling, he said he needed to go," came Fleamont's disembodied voice once more. "Free the poor boy, won't you?"
"Alright, alright, I'm going!" His mother swings back into view on the camera, blowing him a distracted kiss. "Love you, darling! Speak soon!"
The silence that falls when she hangs up is blissful, and after sliding his phone back into his bag, he chances a glance up at Lily. She's still sitting on the sofa, still on her own phone, but there's a smile lingering on her lips that makes him think he might not have been as successful as he'd hoped at hiding his conversation.
In fact: "Where's my love, then?" Lily asks, as he wanders over to join her. She looks up from her phone with an expression of innocence, slightly undermined by the glint in her green eyes. "You promised your mum—"
His only defence is to come back swinging. Humour is often the best option. "How nice to know that privacy is so well regarded in these parts," he replies airily, perching on the arm at the other end of the sofa. She's grinning up at him, enjoying herself far too much, and it sends his stomach into yet more knots. "Eavesdropping is such an unbecoming trait, you know, Evans."
"My apologies," she replies easily, holding his gaze. "I should've realised that the conversation you were having at a normal volume within earshot was not something to listen in on."
He nods. "It takes a strong person to admit their mistakes."
A moment goes by, one where he has the strange sensation that almost anything could happen—she hasn't looked away, and neither has he—but then she sits up, stands up with a stretch, and holds out her hand. "Better get back to nailing our 'indecent' dance, eh?"
He knows he's blushing. He can only thank whatever higher power is watching over him that the Strictly cameras aren't there to document it.
Friday morning dawns, cold and overcast. There's a cafe not too far from the studios that works wonders with poached eggs (one of the most middle class things he's ever thought, and he vows never to speak out loud), and is conveniently not too far from Remus' office, either.
Wonderful, thoughtful, understanding Remus. Remus who won't laugh at him, who will be discreet, who can tell when something is bothering him and doesn't use it as an opportunity to have a bit of fun.
Exactly why Remus is the one he texts for an emergency breakfast, and not Sirius.
(That, and Sirius is unlikely to be awake yet.)
"So you've been…"
James sighs. "Yeah."
"Every night?"
"Without fail."
Remus looks contemplative, taking a moment to pour himself another cup of tea. James watches as his friend heaps in the usual three teaspoons of sugar and stirs it in. "Well, I suppose it's understandable, given…"
"Once, maybe," James interrupts. "But all night, every night?" He idly stabs at his poached egg, watching as the yolk spills out over the toast and bacon beneath. "You know how sometimes, you have an amazing or interesting dream, but then you wake up, and no matter how hard you try you can't get back to it when you go back to sleep? You're dreaming about, I dunno, trying to find the loo in an airport instead?"
Remus nods in understanding. "Annoying."
"Well, that isn't happening with this." James casts another quick glance around them; the cafe is busy, enough people chatting to hopefully mean no one can overhear their conversation, and nobody looks like Rita Skeeter in disguise, as far as he can tell. "I go back to sleep, and it's right back into the action."
"Hmm." Remus pauses thoughtfully. "So I suppose you're finding it…challenging, to see her the next morning."
"Challenging is one word for it, Moony," James mutters. "Torture is another."
"Yes, I heard it's been written into the Geneva Convention."
James chooses to ignore this. "How am I supposed to look her in the eye, be normal, when I've spent all night in my dreams doing…" His gaze darts around, his voice drops even lower. "...unspeakable things with her?"
"The 'with' is important there," Remus points out. "Was it all dream-consensual?"
James scoffs. "Of course it was, I'm a dream-gentleman," he says. "And she was—well, dream-initiating a lot of it, to tell the truth."
Remus considers this, mashing a bit of avocado on his fork. "Look, I know you enjoy castigating yourself—"
"That word of the day loo roll is really paying off, isn't it."
"—but you don't need to," he barrels on. Many years of friendship with James and Sirius seem to have taught him that he can't allow every little conversational detour, or they'll never get anything done. "It's natural, given the nature of your dance this week, and—well, your feelings for her."
"Right," James agrees hopefully. "So once this dance is over, assuming we get voted through…the dreams will stop?"
Remus has a look on his face like he's being forced into making wild and unkeepable promises. But, the good friend he is, he nods anyway. "Absolutely. It's just all the extra intimacy and extra-close proximity. It'd be enough to send anyone's subconscious a bit haywire."
"Okay." James picks up his cutlery again, feeling galvanised; his appetite is back, and maybe he's not dreading the day of rehearsals with Lily. Because it's all fine! Completely and utterly fine. "Great. Thanks, Moony."
"I'm here to help," Remus replies cheerfully. "That and to get a free breakfast."
"Naturally."
James skates by on this undeserving confidence for the rest of Friday, doing what he thinks is an excellent job of pretending that he hasn't spent the past week in some kind of erotic prison where even his unconscious will not release him. Lily tells him she's proud of him just before they part at the end of the tech rehearsals, and he does another excellent job at pretending it doesn't make his entire bloody day.
And then comes Saturday.
It's probably the confusion and resentment still lingering in some quarters online (Sirius tells him that most people seem to believe Lily's statements on what's been going on, but that Snape still has some vocal opponents in his corner). It's certainly nothing to do with the judges' scores—they get four 9s for their rumba, with Craig even saying it's "the most sensual, beautiful thing I've seen all season, darling", which Lily tells him later is not the judge's usual rumba reaction. It's his highest score to date, in fact. He should be riding high.
But then they're in the spotlight of doom, with that ruddy tense music playing on a loop in the background, waiting to hear who has been voted through to the following week. Tess Daly is doing her usual act, with what feels like enough time to nip out for a loo break and a cigarette between 'and the next couple through is…' and the names being announced. It's always excruciating, James' least favourite part of the experience by a country mile, but this week it feels worse. Lily is tense in his arms, and he knows he's got a steel grip on her hands, because that's the only way to be sure the camera won't catch them shaking with fear.
"And now, the first couple in the dance off is…"
He could vomit. He might. He shouldn't have had that takeaway Nando's between filming. The peri-peri sauce is turning to concrete in his gut.
Their bright white spotlight turns to traitorous red. He doesn't even hear Tess say their names, just feels Lily wilting slightly against him.
Motsi Mabuse says it's criminal that they're in the dance off. Her advice is "just do what you did before, all over again", as if James might even be capable of moving his feet right now.
(Backstage, as Claudia interviews the judges and makes people laugh, a producer finds James and Lily standing, shell-shocked, in a corner. "It was a very close run thing," he explains. Like that makes it better. "I think the Twitter stuff went against you, and being off last week."
The producer scampers off, and Lily mutters, "Punished for being ill. Idiots."
It actually helps calm him down a bit.)
They're up against Boy-Band Sean and Natalia Krum. It seems Sean's luck is running out, too. "It's the curse of the good-looking," Sean tells James as they wait through an Olly Murs performance for their upcoming ritual humiliation. "The public can't bear that we're both handsome and talented."
James isn't so sure that's what it's about, but he nods anyway.
Sean and Natalia dance first, a sub-standard jive that has all the light-footedness and spring of a stampede of elephants. Lily turns to James, standing as they are in the darkness of the wings, and gives him a smile.
"What?" he whispers. Not that he's complaining. It's a beautiful smile.
"You're going to be great," she whispers back. She briefly, fleetingly, rests her hand on his chest. "You are great. Even if we get kicked out…"
"Yeah, right," he nods, swallowing down the eruption of butterflies at her touch. "I tried my best."
"No—I mean, you did, but…" She looks away, over at Sean and Nat, then back up at him. In the dim light, her eyes somehow seem even more vivid. "Even if we get kicked out…I've loved working with you."
Oh. Oh. He stares at her, mouth slightly open like a goldfish before he finds the words to reply. "I have, too," he whispers.
She smiles again, softer this time, and turns back around. He feels the strangest, strongest urge to reach for her cheek, to guide her back to him, to press a kiss to her lips.
He resists.
"Fucking hell!" Sirius swings into James' line of vision mere seconds after he emerges from his dressing room and back out into the studio, where the after-show party is in full swing already. "Mate, I thought you were a goner!"
James can only laugh, too relieved and, truthfully, still a bit mad with the adrenaline rush from the dance off. "Same, Padfoot," he replies. "And I didn't think I'd care so much either."
"Not that your dance wasn't good," Sirius adds. "Perfectly passable, I thought."
"He cried," Remus says, arriving at his side; he gives James a hug and a grin. "Like a baby. It was a very touching moment."
Sirius pretends to look cross. "I had something in my eye, I wasn't moved by a bloody dance—"
"Has your heart rate returned to normal?" Remus asks James. "You seemed to hold your nerve up there."
"Glad it looked that way," James admits. "'Cause I thought I might wet myself."
"Through to the final," Sirius shakes his head in awe. "Who'd have thunk it."
"Not me," James agrees.
"I think we should start drinking," Remus decides. "In celebration, and in preparation for the stress you'll be under next week."
James is hardly going to argue with logic like that.
"We should've been voted through," Lily declares. She's not so drunk as to be slurring her words yet, but there's a good amount of demonstrative gesturing to accompany everything she says, and her usually exquisite dancer's posture has taken a turn for the worse.
"We were," James points out, offering her a chocolate button. The party is winding down after a few hours of high octane fun, and lots of people have gone home, but he's happy to find himself slumped in the band pit with Lily and a bottle of champagne. And the chocolate buttons, of course. (A key element of his post-show reward system.)
"No, I mean—by the people," she says, waving her hand vaguely towards where the audience usually sits. "Us? In the dance off? It's—" A pause, and he wonders if she's forgotten what she was saying. "It's—obscene, is what it is!"
"I'm sorry," he offers, and she swings her attention back to him, frowning deeply. "It's, you know, it's me and—bullying, and…stealing you away from…your one true love—"
"No, no, no." She leans closer, a finger pointed sternly at his nose. "You don't have to be sorry. I haven't been stolen! I'm not for the stealing!"
He focuses a moment on her finger, but that makes him go cross-eyed, which only gives him the edge of a headache. Not worth it. "No, you're an independent woman," he agrees. "Girl power."
Lily takes another chocolate button; he watches as she slips it thoughtfully between her lips. Something that shouldn't be nearly as attractive as it is. "I meant, I wasn't his to be stolen from," she says. "But. You could have. You know. Stolen." She blushes. "Anyone could have. If they'd wanted to. Is my point."
James stares at her. He feels suddenly aware of how close together they are. That no one else can see them, down here behind the drum kit. He tries, really hard, to think of something smooth to say.
"I didn't think I would like it."
Hmm. Not quite what he'd hoped for. She raises her eyebrows, a smile tugging at her mouth. "Didn't think you'd like what?"
"Dancing." His mouth's as dry as the Sahara, and he takes a fortifying swig of champagne straight from the bottle. She watches as he wipes a drop from his lips. "I thought I'd be…y'know, crap at it, and…that it would be hell."
"Well," she says. "You're not crap at it."
He swallows. "And it's not been hell."
"Glad we could vault over those low expectations, then." She takes the champagne from him, knocking back a gulp of her own. "You only have to put up with me telling you what to do for one more week, and then you're free."
He thinks about that prospect. He thinks about how strange it will feel to not fill his week with rehearsals. To have free time again. To not see her every day.
He thinks his feelings on the matter must show on his face, because her own expression softens. "No more aching muscles."
"Apart from through cricket," he murmurs.
"Well, yeah," she agrees softly. "But you can't blame those on me."
"True." He pauses. She sets the bottle down; he has her full attention, now. There's just enough alcohol in his veins to make everything feel a little bit easier, and just enough sobriety to remind him that this is a big moment, too big to fuck up. "I'll miss you, Lily."
She stares up at him. Her lashes are so long. There's a dusting of freckles across her cheekbones, like faint galaxies across an alabaster sky. Normally they're hidden under TV-appropriate makeup. It feels like a treat, to be able to see them this close.
"I'll miss you too," she says quietly. She smiles, something soft and a bit bittersweet. "Didn't think I'd be saying that."
Somehow, her hand is on his knee, and his hand reaches up to brush a lock of hair from her face. His heart seems to be thudding somewhere outside of his chest, it's a wonder the rest of the party can't see it and hear it too. She's still looking at him, like the answers to life's questions are hidden in his eyes; it's intoxicating.
He edges closer.
Her eyelids flutter closed, her chin tilting up. Expectant. Hopeful.
Now his heart is in his throat. His thumb skates her jaw. All that's left is to—
The studio lights come up, full blast, and the music comes to an abrupt halt. James and Lily jerk back from each other like they've been physically yanked apart.
"Sorry, folks, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here!" a voice comes over the speaker system. "It's kicking out time!"
Disgruntled and merry voices fill the quiet void that arrived when the music stopped. James can hear Sirius' voice: "Prongs? Oi, POTTER! Where the fuck is he?"
She stands up. Dusts her hands down her dress. Blinks awkwardly in the bright studio lights. "Erm," she says, and he wonders if this is what dying feels like. "Looks like we'd better go."
Dancing has taught him that timing is everything. Now, he feels that deep in the core of him.
"Right," he agrees, and stands too. She has already started across the room, over to Natalia and a group of the other pros. She glances back as she shrugs on her coat, giving him a small smile, and a wave, as if they didn't just have a profound moment together next to a snare drum.
Or did he just read too much into it? It's something he likes to do.
He sighs. Time to go home.