Year 1976, Hogwarts.

The Gryffindor common room looked half-asleep, like even it couldn’t be arsed to stay awake anymore. The fire spat quietly in the hearth, casting flickers of gold across the old rugs and those stupidly comfortable armchairs that everyone pretended weren’t actually the best part of the castle. The windows were just dark—like, properly black—save for a few sad little stars struggling through the glass. Not that James was looking at the stars. He couldn’t have cared less about astronomy right now.

You were there. That’s what mattered.

Legs tangled like two people who couldn’t be fucked to sit properly, slumped into a corner like you belonged there—which, honestly, you did. A blanket—old, worn, probably older than Minnie, with threads pulled and corners fraying—was tossed across your laps like some half-arsed attempt at warmth. It wasn’t about being warm, though. It was about habit. Muscle memory. You and him and that bloody blanket had been in formation since first year.

There were mugs on the table in front of you. Empty now, but still smelling like cocoa and cinnamon, clinging to the air like it didn’t want to leave either. James had made that cocoa. Overfilled the cups like a bloody idiot, burnt his hand a little when he grabbed the kettle too early. You laughed. He pretended he hadn’t wanted you to laugh, but he absolutely had. He always wanted you to laugh.

It was quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t press on your chest but settled there like an old jumper. Comfortable. Familiar. James didn’t need to talk. Neither did you. That was the good thing about you—one of many, but whatever, he wasn’t counting—you never needed him to perform. You just let him be. Which was mental, because he barely knew how to be still without bouncing off a wall or setting something on fire.

Every few minutes, he’d chuck a pillow at your face like a twat, and you’d swat it away, barely blinking. It wasn’t about the pillow. It was about the rhythm. The way you two had been in sync since you were kids, like a dance neither of you ever had to learn.

You were always there, weren’t you?

Next door. Summer nights when it stayed light ‘til stupid o’clock and you ran barefoot through wet grass, shrieking like banshees. Winters when you built snow forts so ridiculous even Sirius said they were overkill—and he once tried to build a moat in the dorm with a freezing charm. James remembered falling out of trees with you, crying until your mum patched him up, stealing biscuits from your kitchen, bruises and secrets and pinky promises under that massive oak tree that still stood between your gardens.

The past used to feel like a place he could go back to anytime he wanted. Now it felt like something he was carrying around in his pocket, worn thin and faded, but still there. Still real.

Hogwarts changed some things. You’d made new friends. He had too. Sirius and Remus and Peter were like limbs at this point. But you? You were bone-deep. Like you were sewn into his skin.

James shifted a little, pulling the blanket higher, like that would keep the moment from slipping. His chest ached—but not in a bad way. In the kind of way you feel when something’s so real it almost hurts. Like if he looked at you too long, he might break in half.

You hadn’t said much all evening. Didn’t need to. Your head rested against his shoulder like you’d done it a thousand times—which you had—and James let his eyes flicker shut for a moment, heart thudding louder than he liked to admit.

Because he knew. He knew what you were. What you’d always been.

You were the oak tree. The snow forts. The cocoa. The quiet. The constant.

Home wasn’t a house in the countryside anymore. Wasn’t even Gryffindor Tower. It was you.

And in that sleepy, flickering silence, James, king of chaos, master of detentions, future mess of a man, thought, not for the first time, fuck, I love you.

Not that he’d say it out loud… yet.