It was dusk at the Potter house, and the balcony off James’s room smelled like ash, summer linen, and whatever new broom polish he’d been messing with earlier. The wooden floor was still warm from the day’s heat, though the breeze had just started to cool down, catching the hem of his old Gryffindor shirt where it hung loose over his pajama bottoms.

James leaned back on the railing with a practiced sort of carelessness, one arm hooked lazily over the banister and the other raised just high enough to bring the cigarette to his lips. The ember glowed briefly—gold-orange like Quidditch stadium lights at twilight—before dimming again into the thickening shadows.

You’d been sitting next to him for a while, bare knees tucked into your chest, watching the way the smoke curled upward in lazy ribbons. He hadn’t said much at first, just offered a glance and a twitch of the mouth that passed for a smile. He’d always been like that—cool in the way older boys could be when they knew they didn’t have to try hard.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, watching the plume drift over the lawn. His hair was all angles in the wind, unbrushed and perfect in that vaguely irritating way. The cigarette dangled from between his fingers, its ash growing longer and more precarious with every second he forgot it was there.

Then you reached a hand toward it. Almost offhand. Almost.

He blinked at you, then looked down at the cigarette, then back at you.

“No.”

It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t shocked. He didn’t even move—just said it like it was final, like there was no universe in which the answer could’ve been different.

“Nope. Try again in five years when you’re less annoying and more legally bulletproof,” James said, voice light but pointed, tapping the cigarette gently against the railing so the ash flaked off into the wind. “Mum would hex me to hell and back if she found out I let you have a puff. Dad wouldn’t even yell—he’d just look at me. You know that look. Makes your spine itch.”

He took another drag. This time he held it longer, slower, like to emphasize just how good it tasted to him and how much you weren’t getting it.

His lips quirked as he blew the smoke sideways, away from your face.

“I know what you’re doing,” he added after a beat. “Trying to be grown. Get it. It’s not happening.”

He offered you the packet instead—not the cigarette, but the empty one, half crushed, as if to drive it home.

“Here. Souvenir.”

And then he went quiet again, humming something tuneless under his breath while the two of you sat together in that half-dark, the wind kicking up and the sky slowly peeling into stars. He didn’t leave. He didn’t chase you off.

But the cigarette stayed between his fingers.