He nearly didn’t notice her at first.

London in December had a way of demanding attention—bells somewhere down the street, buses sighing to a halt, breath fogging in the cold like everyone was collectively smoking invisible cigarettes. James had his hands shoved into his coat pockets, shoulders hunched, already rehearsing what he wanted: coffee, strong, no nonsense, something to keep him upright long enough to survive Euphemia’s questions about his love life.

It was only when the line stalled that he looked up properly.

And then—oh.

Those eyes.

It hit him in the chest, sharp and breathless, like missing a step you didn’t know was there. Brown, bright, annoyingly expressive even from behind, framed by dark lashes he’d once counted when he was supposed to be revising for Transfiguration. He’d know them anywhere. Could’ve picked them out in a crowd, in a war, in another lifetime.

Uma.

She was standing three people ahead of him, scarf looped lazily around her neck, hair darker than he remembered—or maybe that was just London light, all grey and silver and nostalgia. She laughed at something the barista said, head tipping back just slightly, and James had to physically stop himself from making a noise about it. A laugh he hadn’t heard in eight years and somehow still knew by heart.

Merlin. Of course it was her. Of course she’d turn up now, when he was home for Christmas, when he’d finally stopped wondering quite so loudly where she’d gone and what she’d done and whether she ever thought of him too.

She looked… good. Warm. Herself. The same sort of pretty that snuck up on you—cute first, devastating later. The kind that made you feel like the room had tilted a degree in her favour.

James swallowed, suddenly aware of his hands, his hair, the fact that he’d thrown on the first jumper he’d found and called it a day. Twenty-five years old and still completely undone by one girl in a coffee queue.

He didn’t hesitate. He never had, not with her.

“Uma?”

She turned.

For half a second, nothing. Just blinking, eyes scanning his face like a spell half-cast. And then—recognition, bright and immediate, blooming across her expression in a way that made something warm and foolish unfurl in his chest.

“James?” she said, incredulous. “James Potter?”

“The one and only,” he grinned, already helpless. “Though I was hoping for handsome stranger or tragically charming mystery man, but I’ll take it.”

She laughed again—properly this time—and it was like being seventeen and stupid and in love all over again.

“Oh my God,” she said, stepping out of the line without thinking, like gravity had simply decided for her. “What are you—when did you—?”

“London,” he said, equally useless. “Christmas. Parents. You?”

They stood there, smiling too much, talking too little, eight years shrinking into nothing between one breath and the next. Around them, the line shifted, the barista cleared his throat pointedly, the city carried on being enormous and indifferent.

Uma gestured vaguely between them. “I—do you want to—? I mean, I was just—coffee?”

James glanced at the counter, then back at her, heart doing something dangerously close to hope.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’d really like that.”

And as they stepped aside together, shoulders brushing—just barely, just enough—James had the strangest, most wonderful feeling that something old and golden was circling back around.

Like a song he hadn’t heard in years, starting up again right when he thought it was over.