Preparations
As the following week went on, Sirius was getting both more excited and more nervous about Sunday’s showcase.
As he was walking between his two afternoon classes, Sirius was thinking about his routine and the parts that he knew were easy to mess up.
When he got to his classroom, the door was closed and the teacher wasn't in there. Normally everyone goes for an extra walk or to their friend’s class for however long was left of break or until the teacher came to unlock the door.
Sirius would have done that too, if it hadn't been for the fact that Lily was really his only friend and she had class on the third floor, Sirius didn't exactly feel like going up the stairs so he stood outside the classroom with a few other kids who were all standing around and reading or on their phones.
He was running through the tricky bit in his step sequence in his mind again and absent-mindedly began to do the steps in real life.
Sirius knew where he was and stayed close to the side of the hallway so as to not block hallway traffic. He did everything but scaled down and almost entirely on the spot, only doing small arm movements so he wouldn't draw attention to himself or smack other people in the face.
While he did a sort of mohawk three turn, Sirius’s backpack hit the wall. A few heads looked over and Sirius played it off as him leaning back on the wall and running a casual hand through his hair.
A few minutes go by and the teacher shows up and opens the door.
---
This is the last practice before the showcase, everyone practices as normal for the most part. Maybe spending a little more time on the routines they’re going to be doing on Sunday.
Sirius was very focused on getting the parts he was worried about down pat multiple times in this practice because he knew that those parts would be all he would think about during his performance on Sunday.
Towards the last 20 minutes of the session the coaches gathered everyone by the boards and said they were going to do a full run through of Sunday, as a practice for the order and so that everyone could get through their routine at least once without other people on the ice before Sunday.
Bellatrix was called on first.
Everyone else filed off the ice and onto the benches the home hockey team would sit on, to watch. Lily found her way over to Sirius while Bellatrix was taking off her gloves and sweater.
“How's it going?” she asked while they sat down, “good, I think I’ve got the whole thing figured out now” Sirius said, staring off at nothing. “I would hope so, you've been working on that middle section for forever now.”
Lily was exaggerating but Sirius had been working on exclusively his solo for almost the whole practice. He stopped for water every now and then and his lesson with Filius was spent working on some of his weaker elements and making sure he had the transitions between them and other parts right.
Sirius leaned really close to Lily while both were looking out at Bellatrix who had just begun her routine, and whispered “what if he doesn't like it?”
Without missing a beat Lily reassured him and said “of course he will”, equally as quiet. Lily turned to face him and Sirius knows he's not hiding his nerves very well because Lily opens her mouth to presumably continue to reason with him but he stops her, “not here” he said and gestured around them with his head, she nodded and they went back to watching Bellatrix.
When it was Sirius’s turn, he got a little off-time with the music but managed to make it up and have it not be noticeable.
Doing routines is much easier when there's nobody else on the ice that you have to account for and avoid. Lily proved that because she got a little bit ahead of the music, Sirius knew because he had seen her do it so many times, just like everyone else, but she hid it well and just did some extra filler moves at the end to fill the two-ish seconds she had to spare.
Sirius high-fived Lily as she came off the ice and back on the bench, “I was a little ahead” she said between gasps for air, Sirius nodded. “Yeah but whatever you did at the end worked out and nobody in the audience is gonna know anyways” he said, Lily nodded, drinking some water.
“That's the problem when there's nobody there, you don't have to spend three seconds weaving around people or losing speed because of them” her coach Minerva chimed in, they both nodded.
Peter was the last to go, then it was the flood so they all got off the ice and were double checking with the coaches what time they should come on Sunday.
“I'm gonna go straight home tonight, I have a project due at 11:59 that I’ve barely started,” Sirius said as he and Lily were walking down the hallway to the lobby. Lily shakes her head “very Sirius of you, leaving things until the last minute” she said, “hey its not my fault it's boring!” Sirius exclaimed.
Lily snuck a look behind them and Sirius could see in the reflection of the window of the door to the lobby that some other girls from skating were a little ways behind them, “I’ll text you about ten later ok?” Lily said and pushed the door open for them.
It took a second for it to click in Sirius’s mind but when it did he nodded and they continued normal conversation as if she hadn't said it.
10 is Remus’s jersey number, this is fun code that I actually understand, Sirius thought.
As promised, Lily texted Sirius later, right as he was about to start working on his project so this was the perfect excuse to procrastinate some more.
Lily:hes not going to hate you or your solo, you know that right?
Sirius:I dont know, maybe he hates figure skating and doesnt even want to come and watch
Lily:that makes absolutely no sense, if Remus hated figure skating and everything to do with it, he wouldnt have even tried to talk to us the first time, let alone every time after that
Sirius:yeah but what if he watches me skate and decides I’m really bad cause I fall and mess up
Lily:your brain is skipping multiple steps there, calm down, hes not going to. You might not fall, you might not mess up, but even if you do, do you really think someone is going to start hating you because you couldnt perfectly execute something one time? Remus isnt like your family Sirius, besides, he’ll understand if you fall or mess up, we’ve seen hockey players fall and miss shots all the time. Professionals fall, they mess up, you’ll be fine
Sirius:but what if everything goes wrong and I end up losing Remus and James for you at the same time?
Lily:none of us are even together, maybe neither of them like us like that, but you losing them for both of us is not going to happen, and if it does then I wouldnt want us to be with them anyways
Sirius:do we actually have a plan for after the showcase?
Lily:idk, text the groupchat and we’ll come up with one
Sirius:ok but now that my mind has been slightly calmed I’m going to work on this project first
Lily:good idea
Sirius worked on his project until it just needed to be edited before texting everyone.
*The Ice Kids*
Sirius:so whats the plan for after the showcase on sunday?
James:I was gonna ask you guys that
Remus:I dont really care as long as we all get to hang out for a while
Lily:lets go with the cafe for now and if another idea comes up we can change it
James:thats a good idea
Remus:so when is this showcase?
James:yeah, when do we need to be at the rink?
Sirius:the showcase starts at 6 so anytime before that
Lily:the booth should be open for food and drinks but I dont know for sure
James:ok
Remus:well we’ll see you guys at some point after you skate and then we can work out where we’re going
Lily:sounds good
Now that Sirius had that conversation, he felt a bit better about Sunday, he wasn't really in the mood to finish his project so he skimmed through it and caught the easy mistakes and called it good enough to hand in.
---
Todays the day.
Sirius has been avoiding thinking about tonight as much as he can, but now that it's the afternoon, he can't not think about it anymore.
He can't really do much that's productive when he gets excited and anxious for things so he just lies in his bed, aimlessly scrolling on his phone.
At 4:30 Sirius has had enough of waiting and goes downstairs to grab some small things to eat before heading to the arena with all of his skating gear.
The showcase being at six is inconvenient because they usually get off the ice around then and can have a full supper. Sirius knows that you can't really eat a real meal before skating because you just end up with cramps and it's annoying.
Sirius parks his car and walks in the building, there's a few people in the lobby that are setting things up and moving a few things around. The skaters were told to get there about an hour before the showcase starts so Sirius is a bit early but it never hurts to be early.
The board has ‘skating - 2’ and ‘boys - 3’ written on it in erasable marker. Sirius and Peter always get their own dressing rooms for days like this, or test days, mostly just any days where they get to dress in fancy outfits.
Peter wasn't in the room yet but Sirius knew he would be soon, Peter is almost always on time and even more so when he's nervous.
Sirius put his bag down on the ground in front of the bench on one side of the room and hung up his coat.
It hadn't occurred to him until that moment that wearing his ‘good’ shirt to the rink was probably a bad idea, it's not the most uncomfortable thing he could be wearing but if he were to get changed after, he didn't bring a ‘dress bag’ to put it in so it would get all crumpled in his skating bag.
Maybe I can ask to put it in Lily’s, with her dress until I get home he thought.
Sirius grabbed an apple from his bag and took a bite. As he did so, Peter walked in the room, “oh, hi Sirius” he said, Sirius nodded, mouth full of apple.
Peter took the other half of the room for himself and took off his coat and hat, “Peter, I’m just gonna go to the lobby in case anybody comes in looking for me” Sirius announced, “ok” Peter said and Sirius left the room.
He sat in the lobby and ate his apple in peace until Lily showed up and came over. “Hey, how's it going?” She asked, “pretty good, I guess we should start getting ready huh” Sirius replied after he glanced at the clock above the ice ‘5:07’.
Sirius threw out the apple core and opened the granola bar he had also brought with him on the way to the dressing rooms.
“Are you ready?” Lily asked, “for the most part, I’m wearing everything” Sirius paused to unzip his jacket part of the way to show he was wearing the green and black shirt, “just gotta brush my hair and put on my skates” he finished.
Lily nodded “I’m wearing my tights under these pants and I’ve done my hair and makeup, just need the dress and skates” she said as they reached the dressing room doors.
They parted ways and Sirius walked back into the ‘boys’ dressing room where Peter was sitting on the bench with his head in his hands, staring at his skates which had been taken out of the bag.
“Peter you’ll do great” Sirius said, in hopes that would help a little, “I know but all of you guys are better than me and you know it. I don’t think it's gonna go well for me” he said. Sirius sat down near his own stuff and said “I’m going to tell you what Lily’s parents have always told us” Peter looked up at him, “everyone in that audience wants you to do well, everyone in that audience is friends and families of everyone skating, they want to see everyone do well, not just their child or friend, this isn't a competition, this is for fun” Sirius explained.
Peter seemed to understand that, he nodded “yeah, you're right, it's going to be fine” he said and he got to work on putting his skates on.
Sirius dug his hairbrush out of his bag and started brushing his hair. Lily offered to braid it or at least make it look different than it always does but Sirius refused and Filius agreed that Sirius’s hair being down for his routine works out well with the music so he has won this battle.
This was when the nerves started to kick in for Sirius, sitting there brushing his hair. He started to overthink all of his moves again but was thankfully interrupted by a knock on the door.
Sirius sat on the side of the room that the door swings open to so he could see who it was, though he already assumed it was Lily. “Can I come in?” she asked, Sirius looked at Peter who was tying a skate, he nodded.
Lily was in her dress now, Sirius could tell because the skirt was sticking out from her jacket and her normal black skating pants were gone, she's wearing beige tights now.
“How's it going in there” Sirius asked. He knows he’s probably allowed in there, but he wasn't going to bother because that's not really any of his business and he would only go over to talk to Lily anyway.
“Chaotic” Lily said, “that's why I came over here, it's always empty and quiet in your guys' room, not like eight girls running around in various stages of ready looking for god knows what and taking every bobby pin in sight.”
They laughed and Sirius could imagine, he knew he wouldn't want to be in there. Especially because of how Bellatrix is. Sirius could imagine she would basically declare herself as queen of the dressing room and boss everyone around.
“What time is it?” he wondered aloud, “around five thirty maybe” Lily answered. Sirius put his hairbrush down and checked his phone, she was right.
Sirius didn't really know what else to do in the time being, it wasn't quite time to put his skates on yet but that was all he had left to do. Lily stood up and walked to the far side of the room to do some warm ups.
Sirius stayed where he was on the bench and scrolled on his phone for a little while. He looked over at Lily who was leaning against the wall and doing a spiral, “Sirius you might want to warm up your stuff too” she said.
He got up and walked over to her and did a few axels on the ground to warm up to the motion, then he did some other miscellaneous stretches to get more ready, then they decided it was time to put their skates on.
For a normal practice they usually get to the rink ten minutes before their ice time to put their skates on, now they are putting them on with 20 minutes to ice time to make sure they have plenty of time to tie them just right.
Lily left the room as her skates are in the other dressing room, Sirius sat down and took his skates out of his bag.
Halfway through tying his second skate, Filius walked in the room “you ready Sirius” he said, “well I mean I’ve only got one skate on so no, but other than that yeah” Sirius answered.
Filius turned his attention to Peter, “how about you Peter? Excited?” he asked, “I think so, I’m nervous but as soon as I get out there I should be ok” Peter’s voice shook ever so slightly as he said it.
Sirius could hear Filius clap a hand on Peter’s shoulder as a way of telling him it’ll all work out. “Alright boys, come out when you're ready then” he said and left the room once again.
After Sirius tied his left skate, he stood up and shifted his weight between his feet and bent his knees a few times. His right skate was a little too loose for his liking so he sat back down and untied it.
After he finished tying the skate, Sirius bounced on his feet again and this time they were both about even which was much better.
He checked his phone ‘5:54’. Sirius left the room to see the ice, the stands were filling up now.
From his quick glance around he couldn't see Remus or James.
Maybe that's a good thing
As he went to go back to the dressing room, Lily barreled into him “whoops” she said and they laughed, some of the other skaters asked if they were ok, which they were, then continued their conversations.
“Have you seen them yet?” Lily asked, “no, but I didn't look very hard and they might be somewhere that's hard to see from here” Sirius answered, Lily nodded and they both ducked back into the hallway.
Almost everyone was out of the dressing room at this point, some girls started to stand by the boards and watch the zamboni do its final laps of the ice.
“I’m gonna go get my gloves, I left them in the dressing room” Sirius told Lily, she nodded, “I mean you’ve got three minutes so you’ll be fine” Lily said.
Grabbing his gloves was more of an excuse to go back to the dressing room and use the bathroom, while he did also leave his gloves.
Sirius walked into the room just as Peter was getting to the door to leave “see you out there” Peter said and left, Sirius nodded and held the door.
Sirius half-ran to the end of the dressing room to where the bathroom was and went into the stall.
Going to the bathroom before something like this is always weird because as much as Sirius doesn't want to be late to the ice, he would rather be late to the ice than have to go to the bathroom while he's on the ice.
Lucky for Sirius he made it out of the dressing room, putting his gloves on right as some girls were still getting on so it didn't even look like he was just rushing around.
They get about a ten minute warm up before the actual performances so everyone is doing their solos and artistics all at once which is kinda cool but it also makes it very busy on the ice.
Before he does his routine properly, Sirius went to warm up his axel, did a few, fell a couple times, then did a run through of his program.
Once the ten minutes was up, everyone cleared the ice and Bellatrix took to the ice on her own.