Disclaimer: It's not mine, and I'm not making any money. Just enjoying the world.
"Is this weird?" James asked for the twelfth time.
"Not at all," Lily told him for the fourteenth. She might have got impatient with him by now, but she'd realized that telling him it wasn't weird twice before he'd even thought to ask had perhaps made him insecure. He didn't need to worry. It wasn't weird.
Well, maybe a little.
She walked around the bed to where he was standing, his right hand resting on his head where he'd forgotten it halfway through ruffling his hair.
"James," she said, looking straight into his eyes so he'd know she meant it, "it's not weird. I love it here. I love your mum and dad. Your mum and dad love having us here. It's perfect."
He relaxed at last and put his arms around her, and she leaned into him, his warmth and his strength and his lovely James-smell.
"You're sort of perfect, you know?" he said, and she remembered again exactly why it wasn't weird. She wanted to be with him all the time, and if that meant living in the guesthouse behind his parents' place, then that was where she'd live.
Over his shoulder, she could see the big house out their bedroom window, huge and grand in the gathering dusk. The lights were on in the downstairs study. And there was Mr Potter, reading at his desk. Facing them.
Not weird, she reminded herself as she reached out one arm and flicked the curtains closed.
James released her and stepped back, his hands on her waist.
"And you know, we don't even have to eat there. Just for Sunday dinner. Mum could send Maisy down, and–"
"This isn't some Muggle thing, James, but I did mean it when I said I'd rather not have Maisy live here. I just…" she shrugged. "I'd rather cook for you. And have you cook for me, so you can stop swelling up like the king of the cockhouse."
James let out a startled, somewhat strangled laugh.
"I think you'll find it's 'king of the henhouse,' darling. 'King of the cockhouse,' is… probably something you'd only find in Brighton."
Lily blushed, but couldn't stop herself grinning.
"Whatever. Country boy."
"City girl."
"Go unpack the kitchen," she said with a laugh, pushing him towards the door. "If you're not too manly to do so."
"But if I unpack the kitchen, how will you know where everything is when it's time to make my supper?"
He dodged the pillow she threw, and she heard him laughing all the way down the stairs. Smiling to herself, Lily set about unpacking her things.
After several minutes of hanging up dresses and robes and folding shirts and jeans into drawers, she stopped and sat on the bed, her back to the window.
She was living with James.
It wasn't like she was realizing it for the first time; the enormity of the situation had been apparent the moment he'd asked, and the reality had struck when they'd abandoned their plan of finding a flat in London and agreed to move to Godric's Hollow to be close to (and unobtrusively look after) his elderly parents. And it wasn't as if she hadn't been certain it was right; since seventh year ended, she'd been practically couch-hopping between different friends' homes, not certain enough of anything to settle down, which she'd hated.
But home wasn't an option; Pet had sold the house as soon as Dad died to pay for Mum's medical bills, and living with Pet and her girlfriends from work was… less than ideal. Not that she'd been asked.
The truth was, she had missed James. She'd missed seeing him every day, and spending most nights in his room (under strict promises to his roommates that they wouldn't actually do anything). She was so young to be feeling this way, and maybe that was why unpacking her clothes and pictures and books in a room that was now not simply his or hers, but theirs was such a curious mixture of just right and someone else's life altogether.
She remembered the first time he'd told her they were going to live together. They were fifteen at the time, and she'd thought he was either utterly pathetic or taking the piss. Probably both. It had been a frigid winter, and James had taken to calling her "Queen of the Ice Wastes," which had been embarrassing in November, unoriginal in December, and infuriating by January.
"Queen of the Ice Wastes, one day your pristine heart will thaw to me, and you will consent to move into my enormous ice palace," he'd announced one evening in the Common Room. Everyone had been ebullient following a Gryffindor victory in a massive inter-House snowball fight on the grounds, and she'd played along.
"What would I do there?" she'd teased, and the way his eyes had lit up almost made her think he meant it.
"Lots of things! Ice-fishing, ice-skating, overseeing snowball fights held in your honor, and at night…" he'd shared a broad wink with Sirius Black, and she'd felt her back stiffen before the joke even landed, "well at night, it wouldn't just be your heart we'd be thawing, if you see what I mean…"
Black had laughed like a drain, she'd stormed out, and her temper tantrum earned her the bastardized nickname "Ice Queen" until the snow melted in April.
When they'd started dating, Lily reminded James of this incident. His only reaction was to be delighted she remembered one of his preposterous nicknames for her.
"I'll bet melting an ice palace with me doesn't sound so distasteful now, does it, Queen of the–" She'd punched his arm, then kissed him.
It was ridiculous that this memory could make her grin now. Ridiculous that his awful sexual innuendos were endearing, that she actually found it sweet that he was a worse cook than he was a potion-brewer. That she was just eighteen, and living with the love of her life.
With a sudden burst of elation, she bounced up from the bed and threw open the curtains and the window, letting in the end-of-summer breeze and the peppery smell of some plant that she'd ask Mrs Potter to identify for her. There was a light on in an upstairs window at the big house, but the curtains were drawn, and everything was quiet.
Her trunk looked like it had exploded across their bed, James's hadn't been touched, and she really wanted to get her photos hung tonight, but the sound of pots and pans clanging in a worryingly haphazard way was drawing her towards the kitchen like a hook behind the heart.
She bounded down the stairs, one hand coasting over the polished banister, the other over the brocaded wallpaper, and all of it was theirs.
James was sitting on the floor in front of the sink, peering into the cupboard below it.
"Lily, how the hell does one stack pan lids, assuming one is not a complete idiot?" he demanded as he heard her enter.
She knelt next to him, threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed the curved bone below his ear.
"I don't know," she said, beaming at him. "I actually have no bloody idea."
He looked at her in surprise, and his frustration melted into a slow grin.
"James, we live here," she whispered in awe.
"Yeah," he agreed after a moment. He looked around, a bit dazed. "I guess we do."
Lily rested her head on his shoulder, staring into the cupboard under the sink, where James had truly made an utter mess of things.
"What do you think we'll do here?"
A/N: Thank you for reading! As ever, I'd love to know what you think.