The grass on the slope behind the Quidditch pitch glows gold, the kind of honeyed warmth that clings to skin and makes everything smell like sap and crushed petals. The afternoon is slouching toward evening, but it’s still bright enough for shadows to be long and soft-edged, for James Potter to lie sprawled like a lion in the sun — shirt half-buttoned, curls damp from a lazy fly around the pitch, eyes drowsy and shining as they follow you like you’ve caught the whole damn sky in your hair.

He’s been watching you for an hour now, pretending to read but mostly just listening — to the click of your camera as you crouch down to photograph the wind in the thistle fluff, to the far-off snap of your gum, to the quiet hum of some metal song leaking from your enchanted ear cuff. You're in his Quidditch jumper, too large and slipping off one shoulder, sleeves rolled to your elbows, and Merlin, he thinks he might combust just watching you live.

Your polecat is asleep in your bag. You’re crouched on one leg like an awkward bird, light brown eye squinting in concentration through the viewfinder, one palm bracing the camera, the other making wild gestures for the light to behave. You are movement and focus and quiet delight. You are ink and thunderstorms and the smell of home. He can feel the earth tilt slightly toward you.

James exhales, fingers twisting lazily in the grass beside him. When you finally sit down, thudding beside him like you own the world and let it rest, he rolls to face you. There is clover in his hair and sunlight in his lashes, and a content sort of reverence in the way he looks at you.

You lean back on your elbows, one leg tucked up, the other stretched toward the golden slope. The wind pulls at your coils, lifting them like streamers. You say nothing. You don’t have to.

He shifts closer, presses his forehead to your shoulder, warm and grounding. His hand finds yours. Not desperate. Not greedy. Just… James. Solid and sun-drenched and full of all the affection in the world.

Your camera clicks again — a photo of your joined hands, his thumb stained with ink from your sketch pen, your own nails painted amber and chipped.

He murmurs something, a low murmur in a fake Irish accent that makes you huff a quiet laugh through your nose. His favorite sound. That rare, rare sound.

You’ve got a sketchbook in your lap, and as the sun drips low, you draw him — or parts of him. His wrist, his chin, the corner of his sleepy mouth. His Quidditch gloves and his wonky glasses and the way he leans into you like you’re a tree and he’s roots. He doesn’t interrupt. Just watches. Worships.

When your hand cramps, he takes the pencil, kisses your knuckles, and fills the space next to your sketches with a messy scrawl: “James Potter, age 17, currently dreaming of marrying the sun disguised as a girl with a camera and too many secrets.”

You pretend to scoff. He grins like a sunrise. There’s nothing in his face but light.

As dusk pools like ink at the edges of the horizon, you lie together — you on your back, eyes half-shut, and him beside you with one arm thrown over your waist, fingers tracing constellations into your hip. Your coiled hair fans across his chest. Your pet polecat finds its way to your stomach, curling into sleep again.

He smells like salt and wildflowers. You smell like warm skin and the summer you both refuse to let go of.

James Potter is quiet now. Truly quiet. No words. No plans. Just this — the weight of your hand in his, the echo of your heartbeat in his ribs, the low thrum of a boy who’s made a religion out of loving you.

And above, the stars begin to spark into existence, one by one, like James flipping them on — just to impress you.