Trending: Strictly Come Dancing #scd22
rosie4455 ᐧ 30m ᐧ don't care if he's arrogant, i want to lick james potter's abs #femalegaze #scd22
keeeeeeepdancing2 ᐧ 30m ᐧ these two have got to be boning. the EYE CONTACT fcks sake #jamesandlily #allthetensplease #scd22
domejamespotter ᐧ 29m ᐧ i heard the curse has hit once more & she's shagging around behind snape's back #scd22
hysgs23458173 ᐧ 29m ᐧ domejamespotter um who can BLAME her jp is a delight and ss is an incel in sheep's clothing #scd22
strictlysuperfan99 ᐧ 27m ᐧ these two deserve to go to blackpool! he's such a grafter and you can sooo see the improvement he's made! come on ppl VOTE #jamesandlily #scd22
firecrackerevansstan ᐧ 27m ᐧ omg didn't realise this? the plot thickens! ᐧ Retweet: ritaskeeterdm Rita Reveals - Cricketing Heartthrob James Potter & his vicious school rivalry with none other than his dance partner's rumoured paramour… Click to read more.
DaniKidd25 ᐧ 26m ᐧ ritaskeeterdm ugh i knew he was an arrogant posh bully, you can just read it all over his face, no wonder sev isn't showing up to support lily this season. the scars last a lifetime #scd22 #bullying #bbccondonesbullying #supportseverus
yorkshirelasswithanass ᐧ 25m ᐧ DaniKidd25 you are a twat #scd22
He finds Sirius in his dressing room straight after the show, eating his way through a sharing bag of giant chocolate buttons that James has been thinking about all evening.
"You're all over Twitter," his brother says smugly.
It's not that James is unreasonable: he's not going to lose his shit over some chocolate deprivation. It's just that he's tired, he's achey, it's been a long weekend, Lily is still being a bit odd with him, and his head feels like it's full, and not in a good way. In a too-much-to-think-about, having-strange-feelings-about-his-dance-partner kind of way.
"Why are you here?" he replies, sinking onto the sofa and immediately closing his eyes. "I thought you said tonight was the night you were going to 'take a crack at Claudia.'"
Something lands on his cheek—probably a chocolate button—but he still isn't going to give Sirius the satisfaction of looking over at him. Sometimes he's just prodding for a reaction. Most of the time, actually.
"You've only just finished, the party won't get going for a while," Sirius says airily. "Plenty of time for me and Claud to get better acquainted."
"She's married, you know."
"I like a challenge." The sofa sinks a little as Sirius moves to sit next to him. "Don't you want to know what the online reaction to your feisty foxtrot is?"
James grunts. Now that Sirius is closer, he can smell the chocolate on him, and it only makes him more irritated. "Not particularly."
"They loved it," Sirius continues as if James hasn't said a word. "They love the two of you. The consensus seems to be that you two are fucking."
At that, his eyes fly open. "What?"
"All that sizzling chemistry," Sirius smirks. "Long, lingering looks."
"We're—we're not—" he splutters. "She barely tolerates my existence!"
"Ah, well, that doesn't show through on the telly." Sirius tosses the now empty bag of buttons to the floor. "It's a cross I have to bear too, y'know. Unbearable chemistry with just about anyone."
"Unbearable is right," James agrees, adding in a hearty roll of his eyes for good measure.
"But since you mention Evans' hot and cold approach to you…I have a theory," Sirius adds, with a smug face and a smug smile and a smug voice, the smug git.
"I'll bet you do," James mutters darkly. He knows Sirius is desperate to be asked what he's referring to—it's classic Black. But the trouble is, if you ask him these things, it only encourages him, and James doesn't think he needs any more encouragement, frankly. He knows the trouble which lays down that particular path.
Unfortunately for him, even without the encouragement, Sirius barrels on regardless. "It turns out you two have a mutual…friend isn't the right word…"
Oh god. James feels a sinking in his stomach, something fun to go along with his slowly-brewing headache. "...what is the right word?"
Sirius pauses, presumably for dramatic effect. "That wench Skeeter published an article just after your dance tonight, about you and Snape. At school."
For a moment, James considers the possibility that all this dancing has somehow damaged his hearing. "...eh?"
"Severus Snape?" Sirius prompts, his lip curling at the words. "Slimy little shitbag who lived to get you in detention? Makes a name for himself now, I can only assume, gently cradling Musk's balls and dodging his UK tax bills for him?"
(Sirius had always had a way with words: it's what had landed him in the world of journalism. He now makes his presence known in a weekly column for The Guardian, writing excoriating takedowns usually of Boris Johnson or whichever rich idiot happened to be in power that week, although he likes to spare a few inches for Elon Musk and Severus Snape every now and then. James never reads those pieces—he has no interest in giving the bloke even an extra minute of airtime in his head.)
(Apparently that's over, now.)
James blinks. "Yeah, but…what's he got to do with any of this?"
He shouldn't be surprised that Sirius laughs, because one of his friend's favourite things to do is laugh at him. Still, when he's as tired as he is, it hurts. "I thought you researched Evans when you got paired up?" Sirius asks. At James' blank expression, he continues, much too cheerfully, "They're childhood pals, grew up together in sunny Cokeworth. The papers have been trying to say they're 'romantically linked' for fucking years, but frankly, I think it's more likely that he's with me than he's with her."
James takes a brief moment to marvel at the fact that, in all his googling of Lily a few weeks ago, none of this came up; it brings new meaning to 'safe search', honestly, because he knows the full-body-horror reaction he would've had if he'd seen her name linked to Snape's then. This is followed by the feeling of the penny finally dropping, the 'oh, shit' moment of realisation that comes with this news: is this why she'd been so off with him? Had Snape been feeding her his usual poisonous bullshit, turning her against him?
It's very on brand for Snape, James has to admit.
"They can't be…" he starts, but trails off, glancing towards the door as if Lily might come sweeping in at that very moment. She doesn't. "This is…"
"Yeah," Sirius agrees. "What a ruddy mess."
Once upon a time, James was eleven years old, as many children often are. He was eleven, and bright, and curious, and preternaturally gifted at everything he set his mind to, so his parents decided to send him to a nearby private school, where his innate intelligence could be well nurtured, as well as his natural sporting abilities. Euphemia "didn't believe" in private education, but the local comprehensive's idea of sports facilities was a slab of tarmac instead of a pitch, plus a sack of partially deflated footballs, and so, when faced with the prospect of an under-exercised son, she reluctantly agreed to perpetuate a broken system and send James to Hogwarts.
(She still, to this day, mutters about the trappings of a private education and the privilege it has brought her son. She is, as in all things, consistent.)
And so James made his way in the world, quickly picking up some best friends and a reputation for being both frustratingly clever and frustratingly laissez faire about rules. He loved his school; he loved learning; he loved the extensive and state of the art sports facilities; he loved messing about with his friends. All was well.
The only downside was the fact that in his year group cohort was a boy called Severus Snape, a scholarship student with such an enormous chip on his shoulder that he might as well have been sponsored by McDonald's.
The problem wasn't that he was a scholarship student; James Potter, raised as he was by Euphemia and her ardent Labour-voting, workers' rights, power to the people belief system, would never dream of thinking less of someone just because they couldn't afford school tuition. Remus was there on a scholarship, but managed not to be a slimy, oily, vindictive little prick, so evidently you could be one without the other. Snape, though, perhaps driven by his god-given personality (or, it could be argued, lack thereof) since birth, managed both with aplomb.
They just never got along. Snape thought James was an arrogant, privileged, egotistical toerag who had every opportunity handed to him on a silver platter. James thought Snape was a snitching, miserable, vicious arsehole who went out of his way to make sure everyone around him was as miserable as he was. Their interactions ranged from icy disdain to outright fist-fights, although the latter was much rarer, since James knew the bollocking he would receive from his parents if he got into too much trouble.
For most of their school career, James thought of Snape as one of those people he would just never get along with (not that he'd ever tried very hard), and that was fine. As he got older, he got better at ignoring the boy when he was so obviously trying to wind James up, and he got better at resisting the temptation to wind Snape up in return. They left school at eighteen, each clutching some A-Levels and going to determinedly different universities, and that was that.
"Just think," Sirius had said with a happy sigh, "you'll never have to see, speak to, or think about that prick again."
Not that James believes in tempting fate, but—it seems an obvious one, now, doesn't it?
He doesn't see her at the after party, although not by design, because he thinks they've got a lot more to talk about than he realised. But the party is busy, she's chatting away with other people, and then he thinks she's left early, because there's no sign of her anywhere.
He doesn't mind leaving early himself. It's been a long, strange night.
("We're not supposed to know," his talent agent had told him, clutching on to her glass of champagne, "but apparently you just barely got voted through tonight."
He hadn't known how to respond. They'd received good scores from the judges, so it was down to the public. And evidently…they were souring on him.
"Well," he said, eventually, after a very awkward pause. "Thanks for letting me know."
"Oh, you are welcome," she replied cheerily, and headed off to flirt with someone from Coronation Street.)
He spends Sunday in a strange fog of a mood. He knows it's pointless to obsess over the Skeeter article, and he knows that he and Lily are not exactly on texting terms—not that that fact has stopped him from having a staring match with her contact information in his phone, like the unhinged person he seems to have become—but he can't seem to shake any of it off and have a productive or even relaxing day. In the end, he FaceTimes his mum. It's often the only answer.
"Oh, darling," she sighs, after he's poured his heart out for ten minutes straight ("am I a shitty person and I just haven't realised it?", "Was I a bully?", "What's the matter with me that I can't just ask her?" and "Was this who I was all along?" among the highlights, like fifteen years worth of therapy sessions in the time it takes his mum to make and drink a cup of tea). In the warm light of the Potter family kitchen, Euphemia looks terribly, brutally sad, something which James hates to see at the best of times. And this does not feel like the best of times.
"You're not a terrible person, you never have been," she tells him. He is desperate to believe her. "You know how often I was talking to Ms McGonagall about your life at school, dear, we practically had reserved seats in her office—but never once was the word bully used. You were…" She pauses, looking for the right word.
"A twat?" he supplies dully.
She shoots a stern, disapproving frown at him down the camera. "No. You were…very firm in your beliefs about how people should treat each other. You've always been that way, darling, it's something that your father and I are very proud of."
He grunts, head now in his hands.
"I think you need to talk to Lily about all this," Euphemia decides. "That ridiculous Skeeter woman has got the wrong end of the stick," (in the background, James hears his dad mutter scathingly, "For a change."), "and it sounds like Lily is getting fed some misinformation, too. You'll feel better if you can clear things up."
He hangs up, promising to call again tomorrow with an update, and pretending that she's done a fine job of cheering him up. Going to the gym doesn't shift his mood, nor does eating too many chips, and finally he falls into bed, feeling as if he's entirely wasted his one day off, moping around like a punctured balloon.
His phone buzzes. Sirius. 'Sleep well, mate. And—friendly advice here—don't go on Twitter.'
Well, James has never been one to do exactly as he's told, especially when Sirius is the one doing the telling.
lucinda54tothefloor ᐧ 6m ᐧ cant believe the fave turns out to be a massive bullying prick #scd22 #jamespotter
lolathon ᐧ 5m ᐧ These athletes are ALL the same. Think they can push everyone around cos they can throw and catch a ball. #sendhimhome #bully #jamespotter
fififawcett22 ᐧ 5m ᐧ ugh secondary school bully flashbacks! lily dont think with your nethers think with your BRAIN ugh so predictable #jamespotter #sucks
jpfan4ever ᐧ 4m ᐧ no way he's like this. James has more integrity in his little finger than Snape has in his whole body #scd22 #justice4james #jamespotter
smellmymusk100 ᐧ 3m ᐧ jpfan4ever you fkwit, all you care about is abs instead of heart and soul #jamespotter #bully
Maybe it's karma; maybe it's coincidence; maybe it's the fact that he's been rehearsing and training so hard for five weeks straight that his body no longer knows which way is up. But when he wakes up on Monday morning, alarm blaring, he feels as if death would come as a pleasant reprieve.
His entire body aches, his head throbs, and when he staggers to the bathroom, feeling like an eighty-year-old man, he stares at his reflection in the mirror with a fresh wave of horror. A pale, broken facsimile of a James Potter stares back at him for just a moment before they both puke into the sink.
He sends a pathetic text to his agent, who liaises with the Strictly producers, who send a doctor round, presumably not because they think he might be lying, but to ply him with whatever remedies are available so that he might be able to dance this week. The doctor strides into James' flat, takes one look at James and immediately dons a medical-grade mask, and only touches him if he absolutely has to.
It's not terribly reassuring, if James is honest. The doctor might look as if he's just stepped off the set of Grey's Anatomy, but his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. However, after a fifteen-minute consultation which included murmurings of "crikey, look at that" and "it's probably not the plague, but…", and the wielding of not one but two hypodermic needles, at least it seems as if he isn't about to shuffle off this mortal coil.
Not today, at any rate.
Later that day, he's not sure if it's just the fever running rampant through his system, but he thinks he gets a text from Lily.
(If it's just a hallucination, at least it's a nice one. The fever dreams haven't always been as kind.)
Lily Evans ᐧ 15:32 ᐧ Hi - sorry to hear you're poorly. Take care of yourself & don't rush back until you're better. I'll give you a ring tomorrow. Lily x
He stares blurrily at that little x, at all the possible meanings and meaningful possibilities contained in those two strokes of letter formation, for a long time. Far longer, if he's honest, than is dignified. But, he supposes, dignity went out the window when he threw up down his pyjamas this morning.
He falls asleep, the tiny x burned into his eyelids, and dreams of her.
"Oh, Christ," he says, slumped against his pillows. Sirius has made himself comfortable next to him, not even having bothered taking his boots off before he clambered onto James' bed; Remus, brought up not dragged up, is sitting in a chair by his bedside. "Oh, bugger."
"Look," Remus starts, in that way he does—all reason and logic and calm, calm baritone. James tries to let it soothe him, he really does. "It's not all that bad."
"Isn't it?" he asks, aware of the desperation in his voice. "How?"
At his side, Sirius snorts, scrolling through his phone. "I dunno, Moony," he offers. "The fact that he can't remember any of it is not a great sign."
James longs for a time when he was just alone with his thoughts. Even if they didn't always make sense, at least it was less stressful than this. "But I was—the flu! It was the flu acting for me, that can't… she can't…" he says. That's a good excuse, right? It was two days, a lot of medicine and a blistering fever ago. "I just—a twenty minute phone call?"
Remus passes him his mug of tea. "But she texted you the next morning," he points out. "So it can't have been all that bad, can it?"
Maybe not. It's something to cling to, at least, as long as he can tune out the laughing disbelief coming off of Sirius in waves. So what if he had a long talk with the woman he probably—okay, definitely—has a thing for, who might hate him because of a campaign of half-truths perpetrated by her best friend from childhood who happens to be James' mortal enemy, if indeed he was pathetic enough to have a mortal enemy, which he isn't, thank you very much? Chances are that nothing controversial was said, and that even in a feverish state of illness and exhaustion (he's pretty sure at one point he hallucinated Sirius doing a dance for him at the end of the bed—pretty sure, but not certain, because he's too nervous to ask if that was real), he didn't say anything that might open any sort of can of worms.
Twenty minutes, though. That's a bloody long time to talk to someone who he didn't exactly have a chatty relationship with.
Evidently he's been quiet too long: Remus shakes a packet of chocolate digestives at him. "Look, just focus on getting better," he suggests. "There's nothing you can do about this phone call thing now, anyway, and you're probably blowing it all out of proportion."
"You do like to do that," Sirius agrees, taking a biscuit for himself.
"Yeah," James says, suddenly very tired. "You're right."
"They've signed you off the show for this week, right?" Remus continues. At James' nod, he nods, too. "Good. Rest, sleep, maybe leave your phone in another room until you have a better grasp of your memory, and it'll all be back to normal before you know it."
"Wise words," is Sirius' input, sprinkling crumbs over James' duvet. "And maybe don't check Twitter for a while, either."
Luckily, James doesn't have the energy or wherewithal to deflate any further. "Alright."
Remus tries for an encouraging smile. "It'll all be fine."
The text arrives later that day—James hears the ping from his bedroom—but he doesn't read it until the following morning. He's feeling proud of himself that he can walk to the living room without needing a break halfway there, and for sleeping without too many vivid and strange dreams about no one in particular.
He picks up his phone, taps to open the message. And his heart drops to his feet.
Lily Evans ᐧ 13:08 ᐧ I think we need to talk.