Always : A Jily love story

After- party

James POV 

Lily and I take a quick shower before going to the after party. I wore a pair of white jeans, a red shirt and some white sneakers. After getting ready, I walked down into the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee while waiting for Lily to come down.

You love that girl.

I know that, voice in my head

Aren't you going to ask her to marry you?

Well, yes I want to but I'm scared she'll think it's too early.

If she loves you back, then the timing does not matter.

I'll talk to the boys about this.

“James, all ready?“ Lily's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Yeap, you look as good as ever, Lils”, I said and put down my coffee mug to pull her close.

“You look good too, darling”, She said before placing a soft kiss on my lips and intwining our hands.

We walked down to the Gryffindor common room and entered to see the room packed with Gryffindors of all ages. First to third years where having mugs of butterbeer while fourth years and above where mixing something in them. Marls was sitting on Sirius's lap while they chatted with Remus, Peter and Dorcas. Lily and I made our way to them. While walking, everyone clapped on my shoulders and congratulated me. Lily was beaming next to me.

“Well well, the man of the hour”, Sirius said as we dropped to the floor beside them.

“Why thank you, Pads but I can't take all the credit, can I? Wood did awesomely”, I said and everyone raised their glasses to that.

“I'll go get us drinks, babe”, I said to Lily and walked to the drinks corner.

I walked over there and was pouring 2 mugs of butterbeer while looking at everyone around me, having fun and laughing about some inane things and I realized that this is what a teenagers life was supposed to be about. Just having fun with friends, not a care in the world because we have our entire lives in front of us but here we are forced into becoming adults at such an early age, worrying about the looming war and about how to survive the war with our loved ones by our side. That was when I made a promise to myself. I promised that I would fight in this war. I'll fight until my last breath to make a better world for the generations after us. I will fight to create a world where kids were allowed to be kids and the world was not parted into two. A world where everyone was the same and everyone was accepted. I don't care if I give my life to achieve that because in the end it will all be worth it.

“James? Hey, you okay?“ Remus's voice echoed through me.

“Hmm yeah, all good”, I said in an unconvincing high pitched voice.

“You were gone for long so I came to find you”, Remus said with a sceptical look.

“Got distracted that's all”, I said before carrying the mugs over to Lily.

The whole night after that was a blur to me. Everyone had fun and it was just us sitting in the deserted common room.

“Guys, anyone got called by Dumbledore?“ Sirius suddenly asked. We all decided not to have any Firewhiskey today as we had school tomorrow. The boys wanted to drink but I kept them in line.

“For the Order offer?“ Remus asked, his eyes wide too.

“Yeah, so we all got invited?“ Sirius asked astounded but happy at the same time.

“Yes, we did”, I replied and felt immense relief that we all were going to go at it together.

“So what are you guys going to do?“ Pete broke the silence after a while.