Jily one shots

Falling on the ice

Disclaimer: written by @twilightstargazer

It was a cold wintery day at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The silvery rays of sunlight left the piles of fresh snow glittering in its wake. The grounds were virtually deserted and everything was covered in the frozen precipitation making them look cheery and lovely. It even made the Whomping Willow look deceptively innocent. The Black Lake was completely frozen over, with heaps of snow at its edges. The castle itself was dusted in shades of whites and silvers, all the way down to the very last brick. The entire scene created a picturesque image, something akin as to what one may find on a Christmas card.

However, the soft silence which accompanied the beautiful picture was suddenly pierced by a loud curse, followed quickly by a 'thump'.

A young witch by the name of Lily Evans was lying spread eagle atop the frozen lake, swearing at the top of her lungs while a few paces behind her stood a messy haired James Potter who was trying not to laugh (albeit, he wasn't trying that hard)

You see, young Miss Evans was ice skating. Or learning to ice skate, to be more precise. And her teacher was the one and only James Potter who was doing more laughing than teaching really. One would think that it would be the other way around, Lily teaching and James falling flat on his face in his fruitless attempts, but that obviously wasn't the case. When James was growing up, his mother had made him learn how to ice skate among many other things. And Lily? Well whenever it was snowing in Cokeworth, she was usually having a snowball fight with her dad instead of going skating with her sister.

After James found out that she could barely stay upright on the ice, he insisted on her learning, saying that it was completely scandalous that in all her years here at Hogwarts she never went skating on the ice, not even once.

James had overheard Lily and her friends talking about coming out later today to play on the ice at the beginning of the week. Lily had declined, saying that she rather stay inside and finish up her Charms essay instead. After she'd left for her next class, James had sprung on an unsuspecting Mary Macdonald and interrogated her as to the real reason why Lily had refused their offer, and, after a making a promise to prank Phillipa Bulstrode for ruining all of Mary's books (she'd 'accidently' upended an inkwell right over Mary's book bag), he'd gotten all the information he needed to set his plan in motion.

It began with him getting up at the crack of dawn to head down to the kitchens to ask the House Elves to prepare a separate breakfast for the two of them and collect a small basket which contained two pairs of skates and a flask of steaming hot cocoa. Then, he made his way back up to Gryffindor tower where he was met with a grumpy and bleary eyed Lily Evans. He'd ask Mary the day before to get her up early so they could start their lesson without having a million and one students surrounding them.

It had taken some serious persuasion (James had to do the next two patrol schedules by himself) before Lily had grudgingly agreed to come along. Although once she saw where they were heading, she immediately did a U turn and doubled back to castle. James had to run to catch her again. Eventually, after much pleading on James' part and much stubbornness on Lily's, she had finally decided to give it one shot.

And now, having come a full circle, we are back where we started, with Lily lying on the ice and James laughing at her.

Pushing himself off the tree, James effortlessly glided over to where Lily was pouting petulantly after having scrambled into a sitting position. She was regretting coming out here with every passing second. It's just so damn hard to say no to James Potter when he's looking at you like that. Granted that she had been saying no to him for the past four years, but still, that was before she took a liking to him.