The ballroom glowed with warm candlelight, the air thick with murmured conversation, laughter, and the delicate clink of crystal against silver. Everything gleamed—polished oak, gilded mirrors, the sheen of silk and velvet draped across shoulders and waists. Here, tradition and modernity met in careful harmony—the kind of world James Potter had been born into. The kind of world Lily Potter, née Evans, still had to carve her way through.
She navigated it well, of course. She always did. But she had learned its language, not its instinct.
Now, she leaned in close to James, tilting her head toward the enormous chandelier above—a towering masterpiece of crystal and gold. Its brilliance shifted subtly, almost imperceptibly, as though it responded to the presence of those beneath it.
Lily frowned, her lips tugging upward with wry amusement. “That thing looks like someone tried to trap the sun—and got carried away,” she murmured.
James choked on his drink. She’d spoken softly, just for him, but still—his eyes darted around, checking to see if anyone had heard. No one had. But it didn’t matter. The irreverence of it sent laughter bubbling to his throat—yet something held it back. An awareness she didn’t share.
To Lily, it was just ostentation—a gaudy display of excess. She thought she was making a sharp point. He had only caught the humor.
The misalignment passed unnoticed—just as so many of their differences had.
But as the amusement ebbed, something unsettled curled in his chest. He glanced back at the chandelier—its glow steady, untouchable. He’d never questioned its presence before. He knew its history, of course: how each heir had added their own enchantment, weaving another thread into a lineage unbroken for centuries. But he had never considered that someone might look up and see only extravagance. At most, people had joked about dancing beneath a monument. But James couldn’t recall anyone ever mocking the chandelier itself.
The thought sat uneasily. James brushed his hand against Lily’s, almost absently, steering her toward the kind of conversation that made events like these worthwhile—an effortless inroad, a connection to be made. She barely seemed to register it. Her attention had already drifted elsewhere, the barest wrinkle of her nose betraying her disinterest. She didn’t see the point. James didn’t push. He could make the right introductions on his own.
Lily gravitated toward those who didn’t wear their heritage like a mantle. People who welcomed her warmth, admired her wit—and when she unknowingly veered into unfamiliar ground, smoothed over her missteps with easy grace. It was the kind of courtesy that never drew attention to itself. But Lily’s intuition was sharp enough to sense it. Even among the most forward-thinking—the ones who never spoke of archaic nonsense—on nights like this, she was accommodated, not sought.
Then—from the north-facing entrance—Sirius and Severina Black arrived.
Not a hush—not quite. But a shift.
To James, it felt like gravity had redrawn itself. As if the room had quietly reordered itself around a new axis.
Lily’s fingers curled, briefly, around her glass.
The Lady Black didn’t seek attention. She didn’t have to. It moved toward her, the way water bends to the pull of the moon. Her presence wasn’t a sudden storm—loud, insistent—but the slow, inexorable tide. The one people watched. The one they waited for. The one they knew—without needing to be told—would decide the course of the evening.
She wore tradition not as a relic, nor even a weight—but as a weapon. Armor and alchemy: equal parts reverence and reinvention. She unearthed the past—its buried knowledge, its lost intricacies—and made it necessary again. Made it alive.
And beside her, as always—Sirius Black.
The Lord Black was all presence, all motion—effortless where she was deliberate, wild where she was sharp. If Severina was the tide, Sirius was the wind: unguarded, unapologetic, sweeping through spaces never meant for him—and making them his own.
If she anchored, he unshackled. If she wielded, he shattered and rebuilt. Together, they didn’t reject legacy—they remade it.
Lord and Lady Black, the whispers went—the future of wizarding Britain.
Once, that had been James and Sirius. Brilliant. Bright. Bold. The future. The Marauders had been at the center of everything. He wasn’t sure when that had changed.
And then—before he could think better of it, James stepped forward. “Lady Black,” he said, inclining his head just so. “Dance with me.”
The floor flared to life beneath their feet as the first note struck—The Inferna Cadence.
For James, an old favorite.
They moved—fast, sharp, precise. The dance demanded nothing less. The world collapsed to footfalls and fire, breath and rhythm. Each step left a whisper of embers behind, tracing patterns so intricate the watching crowd could only sigh at their flickering beauty.
James lost awareness of the crowd quickly. His focus narrowed—to Severina, to the rapid shift of weight, the sharpness of each turn. It was impossible not to, as the game sharpened, quickened—something unspoken flashing between them like an unsheathed blade. Somewhere between the flicker of embers and the snap of her wrist, the years fell away. In this moment, she wasn’t Lady Black. He wasn’t Lord Potter. She was only Severina Snape—the girl who’d once been his favorite enigma to unravel, his greatest adversary. His best fight.
Could he keep up? Could he match her, step for step, as he always fought to—in duels, in debates, in the endless battles of wit and will?
James rose to it.
He played. He flourished. Faster. Bolder. Every step full of purpose. His movements sharpened—beyond reflex now. Closer to instinct. Closer to flight.
Her eyes never left his. The music wrapped around them like ribbons, pulling memories from the deep.
He remembered how she used to move when they argued—precise, infuriating, unmatched.
But he could match her. He always had.
Until—
A hesitation. Not a misstep. Not quite. But a spark flared in the wrong place. Less than half a beat off.
It had been a long time since he’d danced a true wizarding dance. Here, even the smallest mistake could mean more than embarrassment. It could set the floor alight.
He felt it in his chest before he even understood it.
Severina caught it.
Of course she did.
She adjusted before he even realized the miscalculation. More than that—she transformed it. Turned it into something greater. A movement so seamless the mistake vanished into beauty.
The crowd sighed, breath held and released as one. To them, it was just a flourish.
But Severina met his gaze—
and smirked.
James exhaled sharply. The music swelled. The sting of it all lit him up—bright. Beyond them, the world, again, ceased to exist.
By the time the final note settled, a crowd had gathered. Pulled in. Drawn close. Not just by Severina—but by the tension, the uncertainty, the magnetic pull of something unresolved.
For a single moment, his heart lurched—nostalgia sharp as a blade.
Then—
A hand clapped his shoulder.
James flinched. He hadn’t realized how far he'd drifted, how easily he’d slipped into something he wasn’t ready to leave.
“May I have the next dance, Lady Black?”
The voice was familiar. As familiar as his own.
James turned.
Sirius.
He barely had time to speak. To think. To do something—anything—
Before Severina was already stepping away. Already turning toward Sirius. Already leaving him behind.
No hesitation, not even a second.
Just before the moment vanished completely, Sirius looked at him—gaze steady. Then Severina took his hand.
And it was over.
And James—who had always stood at the centre of things—was suddenly just like everyone else. An observer. A bystander.
The thought curled at the edges of his mind, cold and unfamiliar. He had always assumed he’d be in the thick of it. Shaping the future. But now—something unnamed stirred at the edges of his awareness, quiet but insistent.
Like everyone else, his gaze was drawn to the dance floor. To the one couple everyone was watching.
James’ dance had been a duel—an exchange of sharp edges. A game meant to be won.
But Severina and Sirius—
They were something else.
Part of it was the nature of the dances James knew. The Astralis Waltz was floating rather than fiery.
But part of it was achingly familiar—like watching his mother and father. Always in step. More one than two. That same quiet longing stirred again. The one that had always kept him watching. Dreaming. Unable to look away.
Where James had been bold, Sirius was effortless. Where his steps were grand, Sirius’ were intimate.
Had James been trying to prove something all along? To match her? To match who she was? Had he always been reaching—without knowing why?
But Sirius—he had nothing left to prove. Not anymore.
James had known that, for a while. But knowing is different from seeing it. Feeling it. Laid bare in the form of a dance. Theirs wasn’t a battle. It wasn’t a test. It was inevitability.
No games. No keeping score. Just two people who knew each other so well that movement became an extension of something deeper. A hard-won, unshakable understanding.
James’ fingers tightened around the Aetherwine glass. Its weight felt unfamiliar—had he even noticed picking it up? The deep violet liquid moved sluggishly, heavy as ink. He held it too tightly.
“They make it look easy, don’t they?”
“They’re truly unmatched.”
“I can’t decide if I envy Lady Black or Lord Black more.”
James caught only fragments. Meaningless, really. But they clung to him. Pressed against him. Persistent—like an itch beneath the skin.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. Half-listening. Half-seeing. Until, restless, uneasy, he turned, searching for an escape from something he couldn’t quite name.
There. There she was. Lily. Alone by the window.
For a second, something about the way she stood—still, separate—pricked at him. Not sadness. Not discomfort. Just... distance.
She belonged here, of course she did. She was Lily. She was his.
And yet—something shifted in his chest. A flicker of doubt, like a chill under silk.
Her eyes flicked up to him—then away, quick as a breath. As if she hadn’t been watching. As if she hadn’t been looking between him and the couple on the dance floor at all.
James exhaled, shaking off an invisible weight. He made his way over, shoulder bumping hers lightly, glass tipping in silent invitation.
“Everything alright, Mrs. Potter?” he teased, as he always did.
Lily had always found being called "Lady Potter" ridiculous. When they first married, James had been too enchanted with calling her by his name to resist teasing her. He had pushed, nudged, tested, until finally, she had conceded to "Mrs. Potter."
Once, she used to blush when he called her so.
Lily lifted her glass, smiling—but it did not reach her eyes. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
James did not answer.
Because he did not know. Because he did not want to know.
That the moment had passed. And there was no getting it back.
Once, the world had been his to claim.