would you like to dance with me?
Lily’s having a little trouble breathing right now. 3 hours before the party and James is pacing around her room while she lays on her bed trying not to picture what Pandora might be wearing tonight.
“This is a bad idea,” James says, Lily sits up to look at him while he walks back and forth across her bedroom floor. Mary and Marlene had gone down to help Sirius and Remus set up and won’t be back for another hour so Lily and James took the opportunity to freak out together. “We shouldn’t do this, it will only end badly.”
“If you have suggestions on how to get out of it, I’m all ears.” Lily says.
“This was a horrible idea,” James says, sitting down on the edge of Lily’s bed.
“You’re the one who asked him and Pandora!” Lily reminds him.
“You forced me! And so did Sirius, albeit unknowingly!” James retorts.
“You wanted to,” Lily reasons.
“But I wouldn’t have,” James says back. “I’m a coward.”
“You’re a coward?” Lily questions. “You once jumped up on the table in the Great Hall and sang ABBA songs consecutively until Mcgonagall came over and gave you a month of detention.”
“That was far less terrifying,” James says.
“If he didn’t want to come, he would have said no.” Lily says.
“Maybe he just felt trapped, I mean I did practically corner him seconds before class ended,” James says, but Lily wouldn’t let him fall into his fears especially since she’d seen how big he’d smiled when he told her that Regulus had said yes.
“James,” Lily says, grabbing her friend’s shoulder and bringing him back to reality. “It’s Regulus, if doesn’t want to do something he’d tell you. You don’t have to worry, me on the other hand…”
“Oh come on, Lily,” James says. “What did you tell me Pandora said to you on Friday?”
“That she was excited for the party and would see me there,” Lily recites, nodding her head when she remembered the interaction at the end of Transfiguration on Friday. Pandora had said that and Lily thinks it took her nearly 30 seconds to even respond. “Yeah, and I said yeah me too and then she left. What is wrong with me?”
“What? That is a perfectly normal social interaction,” James says. “When I said that to Regulus he just stared at me, though he’s so cute that I didn’t mind.”
“That’s you,” Lily says. “You can have 2 second conversations with someone and perceive them as perfectly normal and never think about what you said again but I am incapable of not overthinking every word that comes out of my mouth for the next month after one sentence with Pandora.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I don’t overthink things,” James protests, lying down next to her. “I spent an entire class not taking a single note because I couldn’t think of how to ask Regulus what turned out to be a 58 word conversation.” Lily looked over at him confused. “Yeah, I know the exact amount of words exchanged.”
“Nevermind, I’m sorry I doubted your overthinking skills,” Lily teases.
“Yeah, yeah,” James says. “But really whatever happens tonight, we are still going to end up right back here in 9 hours and we’ll still have each other.”
“Yay!” Lily feigns extreme enthusiasm at James sappiness, bringing her hands up in a victory motion.
“Shut up,” James says, nudging her.
“Alright,” Lily concedes, and moves to get up. “I’ve got to get ready.”
“The party’s not for 3 hours,” James says. “We should hurry.”
“Yeah, Mary and Marlene should be here in about 20 minutes,” Lily explains. “Will you let me practice makeup looks on you until they get here?”
“Sure,” James says, sitting up. “What color were you thinking?”
_____
They spent the next half hour practicing and by the time there was 20 minutes left until the party started Lily was dressed in a light pink dress and Marlene had insisted on curling her hair. Mary had her best dancing shoes on as well as a dark purple dress perfectly matching her lipstick and Marlene was beautifully decked out with a black skirt, fishnets, and a rock n’ roll t-shirt under her red leather jacket.
James had said that the stick on pearls matched Lily’s daisy earrings so she had small pearls around her eyeshadow, Mary said she looked adorable but throughout all of them getting ready all Lily could think about was if Pandora was doing the same thing now. And if she wasn’t able to stop thinking about Lily the way Lily couldn’t stop thinking about her.
They headed down to the common room and Lily immediately found James, he’d changed into a red sweater and was joking around with Pete, Sirius, and Remus but Lily can see how much his hands are shaking. He’s just as nervous as she is, maybe if they just stick together tonight will be fine.
Other people start pouring in from Gryffindor and eventually from outside.
“On a scale of one to ten how much do you want to hide upstairs right now?” James asks, appearing next to her after their friends dissipate into the party.
“Ten,” Lily responds, both of them knowing they had to stay. “Do you see them?”
“Not yet,” James says. “How are you feeling?” Turning her toward him and away from staring at the entrance, with a disappointed look appearing on her face every time a person walked in and wasn’t Pandora.
“Nerve-wracked,” Lily says. “I’m going to say something stupid.”
“You’re not going to say something stupid,” James says. “If one of us is going to say something stupid you know it’s going to be me.” Lily laughs, leave it to James Potter to make her stop thinking about overthinking for even a second. “Lily.” James says, gesturing to the door.
Pandora, Regulus, Barty, Evan, and Dorcas just walked in. Lily can see out of the corner of her eye Marlene pulling Dorcas away and Barty and Evan drifting into the crowd, she even thinks that Regulus might have looked over to her and James for a second but the majority of her gaze was taken over by Pandora.
Her dress is a beautiful blue fabric that somehow makes her eyes even more gorgeous to stare at and it has bits of fabric that keep catching the lights and managing to shine simultaneously with her earrings. She looks absolutely gorgeous. Anything Lily could have imagined could not have measured up to this. Parts of her hair are pinned up in seemingly random places and it’s all somehow falling in perfect place.
Lily can’t help imagining her hair spinning and the skirt of her dress circling around her when she’s dancing. She also can’t help imagining holding her hands and spinning around with her. That fantasy is just that, Lily can imagine dancing with her as much as she wants but she just isn’t brave enough to ask her.
She looks away, nudging James to do the same. “Why was I thinking this was going to be hard?” James asks. “It’s going to be freaking impossible.”
“Yeah,” Lily agrees, watching Pandora and Regulus move into the party, “impossible is right.”
_____
An hour into the party and so far Lily has drank a little, danced with Mary, gotten into a debate with Remus over a book when they both needed a minor break from other party conversation, and managed to only stare at Pandora every few seconds. She was just too gorgeous, she’s gorgeous everyday but tonight it seemed to be augmented by party lights and that beautiful dress.
“Hey,” James says, appearing by her side again. “How are you doing?”
“Great,” Lily says, they both know she’s lying.
“Just go talk to her,” he says.
“Why don’t you just go talk to him?” Lily retorts, knowing full well talking to Pandora is all she’s been thinking about all night.
“You’re stronger than I am,” James says. “What could go wrong? You talk in class, just start by talking about class.” James nudges her in encouragement as he walks over to check on Remus. “You’ve got this!”
She does not have this. Talk like you do in class, James says but somehow Lily was panicking too much, she can’t even remember what they talked about. Lily looks back up to where Pandora was wandering away from Regulus. Talk to her, she thinks. You’ve got this! James’ voice says in her head. She turns away from Pandora and rests her hands down on the drink table by the wall. You’ve got this, James repeats, talk about class. Lily refills her drink before turning back to Pandora, who’s now talking with Dorcas. Before she can take another step, Pandora and Dorcas are walking over to where a group of people were dancing.
Immediately Lily could tell that she was never going to be able to focus again. She’s seen Pandora dance at other parties but everytime she somehow looked more beautiful than the last. Right now her dress was twirling around her and her hair was falling up and down as she and Dorcas spun around.
Lily has the same thoughts she always does, she’s gorgeous and I wish that were me.
Lily forces her eyes to pull away from Pandora and Dorcas and they float down into her drink. You’ve got this! James said. She doesn’t have this and her eyes start scanning the room for her friend. She finds him eventually but he’s being pulled away and Lily thinks for just a second that her eyes were deceiving her but no that was Regulus Black pulling James away.
You’re stronger than I am, James said. If that were true then how did he explain this but as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, James is usually right. So, she can’t let him be the only one to be brave tonight.
Lily looks back over at Pandora and Dorcas but it looks like Dorcas was being swept away by Marlene and Pandora was heading back to the nearest table. Now or never, Lily thinks, before walking over to where Pandora was standing.
Her heart’s beating so fast she fears she might need to worry about it cracking a rib bone but if that’s what walking across the room feels like, talking is going to feel like a heart attack.
“Hi,” Lily says, standing next to Pandora while she refills a drink.
“Hi, Lily,” Pandora says, smiling, Merlin, she’s gorgeous, Lily thinks. “How are you?”
“Great,” Lily says, not lying this time but still feeling like her heart was about to break a bone. “Are you enjoying the party?”
“Yeah,” Pandora says. “You guys really know how to plan a party.”
“Yeah,” Lily says, maybe this didn’t have to be quite so terrifying, James was right they talk all the time in class. “I guess you’ll have to start coming to more.” That was a reach, bordering on flirting, and just like that she’s back to this being terrifying as she waits for Pandora’s response.
“I’d love to,” she says, and Lily hopes her engulfed relief isn’t visible. “But who’s going to be able to keep this up after you all go and graduate? You’ll leave us with subpar parties.”
“Don’t worry, Sirius and James have had people in training all year.” Lily answers, it was true, Pandora laughs and all Lily can do is stare at her and laugh along.
“Wonderful,” Pandora says, “that solves that problem but I’m afraid I’ll still be finding myself tremendously bored without you in class.”
Lily’s not sure if she was delusional or if Pandora had actually moved closer to her when she said that. Either way, Lily’s heart was back to beating against her ribcage. Is she flirting? Was that flirting?
“Well, if you’d like I can train someone for that,” Lily jokes, Pandora laughs again and Lily never knew that making someone laugh could feel so good. Maybe that’s why James was always telling those terrible jokes, she thinks.
“Mmh,” Pandora starts, and this time Lily is sure that no lights could possibly be the creator of the blush she saw forming on Pandora’s cheeks. “They’d never measure up.”
Now Lily is almost regretting her knowledge of being able to see the blush on Pandora’s cheeks because now she’s blushing fully knowing that Pandora can tell.
“Well, you’ve got it easy,” Lily jokes. “I’ll never get to hear about another of your potions again.”
“I’d never let that happen,” Pandora says, Lily feels comforted at that, her previous fears after not talking outside Sprout’s classroom pretty much stomped out. “You always have the best ideas.”
Lily smiles. She takes a little pride in that, last year when Pandora had dated Xenophilius one of Lily’s main focuses of jealousy was that they were also close with Potions. And she knows he’s very good at them too.
“Well, you always have the best creations.” Lily says. Pandora blushes at that and all Lily wants to do now is pull Pandora away and go work on a potion together but she could settle for just keeping talking with her.
The song switches and Lily can see Pandora’s hands fidgeting with her nails. For whatever reason seeing her nerves made Lily slightly braver, maybe she’s just nervous because the party’s too crowded or she doesn’t want to be talking to Lily at all but James Potter's voice was still playing in the back of her mind. You’ve got this, he says. Lily reaches, her own fingers shaking, and touches Pandora’s hand, her eyes meeting the other girl’s eyes.
“Would you like to dance with me?” Lily asks before another thought of doubt could reach her mind. For a second Pandora stares at her and she fears something was wrong but then.
“I’d love to.” Pandora says, with enough excitement that leaves no room for doubt in Lily’s mind. Pandora interlaces their fingers together and pulls Lily to where others were already dancing before Lily can react.
She doesn’t let go of her hand for even a second while they’re dancing. Lily finds a strange amount of courage and decides to pull Pandora into a spin. Pandora giggles as she turns around, lifting Lily’s hand so as to not let go of it. Lily can feel the fabric around Pandora’s dress brush against her legs as she twirls. She’s so gorgeous, is all Lily can think as she watches how Pandora’s head falls backwards, spinning around again, her eyes stare at the ceiling before dropping back down on Lily. Pandora gets a tighter grip on Lily’s hand and spins her around. They’re both laughing now and Lily can’t stop staring at her.
Pandora tosses her head back again when Lily spins her and Lily watches the sparkles of her earrings fall into her hair. How is it possible for someone to be so beautiful? Lily questions.
Pandora ends her spin and accidentally brings her head up too fast, losing her balance. She almost falls forward onto Lily, who reaches for her arms to stabilize her and somehow in trying not to fall over Pandora ends up grabbing onto Lily’s waist. They stand straight again and Lily’s hands might be on Pandora’s arms but she’s doing a shit job of stabilizing her. She can feel how loose her grip is but in her defense with Pandora’s hand still holding her waist she isn’t exactly thinking clearly.
“Sorry,” Pandora says, moving to slowly let go of Lily, much to the girl’s disappointment. “Lost my balance there.”
“It’s fine,” Lily responds, at least her brain is working enough to fashion an appropriate response.
In another second Lily’s pulling Pandora back into a dance, grabbing hold of her hand once more and wishing that this entire moment could last forever.