It is the dying hour of afternoon, and the light in the Hufflepuff common room is golden, stained like antique parchment and warm milk. The ceiling hums gently with magic; someone plays the harp on the wireless, and you sit cross-legged on a velvet cushion by the hearth, threads of golden yarn tangled in your lap like spun sunlight.

And he stands there — James Potter — leaning against the carved stone doorway with all the patience of a man who has none. His tie is undone, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, and there’s a bruise blooming across his jaw like spilled ink, a prize from Quidditch or dueling or perhaps from the way he throws himself into everything that isn’t you. His hair is chaos. So is his stare.

He watches you as if memorizing the exact way your fingers tremble when you tie a knot. As if your silence is a language he’s only just begun to understand.

There are things he doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say that he slept in your scarf last night. That Lily Evans called him charming and it meant nothing. That when you smiled at Amos Diggory during breakfast, his fork bent in his hand. That he’s tired of pretending he doesn’t crave you like water after hexes, like air after pain.

You are gold to him — not like coins, not like trophies — but like firelight, like coronation, like the ache of being seen for who he is and still being wanted.

You glance up, catch him looking. Your eyes — sharp and brown and full of old cleverness — make him stand straighter, despite himself. He’s already crossed the room before he realizes he’s moved.

The hearth crackles, the flames shifting like secrets, and he kneels at your side — not because he should, but because it feels inevitable. Like the pull of a planet.

His hands are warm and calloused, trembling just slightly as they brush the edge of your thick, handmade jumper. He doesn’t speak. He’s never been good with words when it comes to you, not the important ones. Instead, he lays his palm flat against your knee, grounding himself.

And you — soft, strange, grand in your quiet way — you let him.

Outside the castle, war builds like thunder. Betrothals and bloodlines crackle like cursed contracts. But here, in the soft hush of the hourglass room where loyalty pulses stronger than pride, James Potter clings to his undoing.

You.

You, with your migraines and your mild food and your gift for laughter that doesn't need to be loud to be felt. You, who are not the flame but the hearth. Not the storm but the stillness after.

He kisses your forehead — reverent, breathless — like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he dares anything more. His lips linger, pressed just above your brow as if he could charm love into permanence.

And when he pulls back, it’s not triumph in his eyes, but devotion. The kind that aches.

The kind that says: I am yours. And I’m terrified of it.

You tug on the edge of his undone tie, just a little. A gesture. A claim.

And he smiles. Not the smirk he gives the world. But the one he saves for you.

The world can burn. The war can come. But for now, it is just him and you — a Gryffindor undone by a Hufflepuff’s stillness.

The boy who would burn the sky for a girl who likes gold and fears disease.