Life was seamless. The sun still shone, but fall was settling in. Scarves and hats were being brought out. Lily started wearing tights under her skirts and James started wearing a sweater over his button down. 

He was excited — he'd gotten a letter from Teddy. He'd proposed to Victoire ( fucking finally ). He's been wanting to do it for a year now but had never had the courage. They didn't want a big wedding and they didn't want to press to get wind of it, so they were getting married as soon as possible aka over Hogwarts's winter holiday. It would be a family affair, some friends invited, but as their family was already massive ( and most of their friends married into the family ), they would do. James was ecstatic as Teddy had asked him to be the best man. Albus was to be a groomsman and Lily Luna was asked to be a bridesmaid. 

James was in the kitchen, breaking their routine, leaning against the counter with the letter in his hand. It was a Saturday, he knew that Lily would be in the library studying with her friends and normally he would be on the pitch, but he wanted to give the team a day off to catch up on work and be with friends. 

Two big things were coming up for him anyway: the first Gryffindor quidditch match and the first Hogsmeade trip. He and Lily were supposed to help the third years get there which meant that he wouldn't be able to be with his friends for most of it ( they had a tradition of going to the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year together and going to Zonko's ) but he had to do his job. 

As he was engulfed in his thoughts, the door opened. In walked Lily. She looked really pretty, he thought. Her cheeks and nose glowed red from the cold outside. She had on a black turtleneck sweater and a short darker plaid pencil skirt, black tights and a flowy, thick coat that matched her skirt and tied around the middle, though it was untied. She also had a beige and creme colored knit scarf draped around her neck and her hair framed her face. She looked kind of like a librarian, but he liked it, it suited her. 

He watched her as she took off her coat, scarf and boots — she was lost in her own little world. He noticed that she didn't like hats. He didn't know why, but he had found that she didn't own any. Maybe one sunhat, but he'd never really seen her wear it. Consumed in his thoughts about hats of all things, he looked alarmed when he found Lily staring at him.

"Oh, hi! I'm so sorry I didn't see you," Lily said with surprise. 

"No, it's fine, I'm normally not here, so I wouldn't expect you to," James explained with a small smile.

"Yeah, don't you normally have —" Lily asked awkwardly. 

"Quidditch, yeah, I decided to give the team a day off," James explained.

"That's why Nyah was there. Well, thank you I guess, she's been kind of consumed with it lately, so it was nice to see her," Lily replied with a kind smile. 

"Oh, well that's nice. Sorry 'bout that. We've been prepping for our first match against Ravenclaw," James explained as he scratched the back of his neck. 

Lily just kind of hummed, looked down as if thinking and James thought that she didn't want to talk to him anymore. She sometimes did that — where if she didn't want to talk to him, she would make the conversation a little awkward and then just stop talking. 

But instead, she left out a short, soft laugh and smiled to herself before looking up. He was looking down at his letter again, it must have been important. 

"You know, we're totally going to win," Lily gloated out of nowhere. 

"What?" he asked as he looked back up at the sound of her voice.

"Ravenclaw. We're going to win the match. I heard they've gotten better this year," Lily said with a hopeful smile. 

"Well, we'll see about that. I've brought Nyah on as co-captain, I heard it was a close call between us, so it's only right. And they can't beat the two of us together," James said with a wide grin. 

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