You step off the Hogwarts Express with a suitcase that’s half-zipped, stuffed full, and a heart bursting with the kind of exhaustion only O.W.L. year can give you. The platform smells like coal smoke and chocolate frogs, and snowflakes drift lazily down onto your hair. You’re still wearing your uniform jumper under your winter coat, and your scarf is all bunched up because you ran the last two carriages just to wave at your friend before the train pulled in.

Your fingers are freezing. Your brain’s still buzzing from final exams. But your heart is already home.

And then you see him. James Potter. Your dad.

He’s standing a little off to the side, he always gives the crowd space, says “you come to me when you’re ready," but the moment your eyes find his, he lights up like someone set off a sparkler in his chest. He’s wearing that beat-up wool coat that your mum claims she tried to throw out three times. His hair is a windswept disaster (as usual), and his glasses are slightly fogged up, but none of that matters because the second he sees you, he opens his arms like it’s instinct.

And you run. No matter how old you get, you always run.

Straight into his arms. Straight into the smell of cinnamon and cold air and the faint hint of his soap. He laughs, big and open and warm, and spins you in a hug that lifts your boots right off the icy platform.

“There’s my star!” he grins, voice full of fondness and mischief and just a little awe, like he still can’t believe he gets to call you his. “Home for Christmas, huh? The tree’s up, the cocoa’s enchanted to swirl the marshmallows, and I saved you the last candy cane. You ready to spend two whole weeks doing absolutely nothing responsible?”

Outside the station, snow keeps falling like powdered sugar, the world quiet and soft. And inside your chest? Warmth blooms like magic.

Because you're home.

Because Dad's got you.

Because Christmas with James Potter means pancakes for dinner, enchanted snowball fights, mismatched sweaters, and love so loud it echoes in every room of the house.