A.N: So here's the second installment of my little one-shot collection. I wrote it today after my History exam :)
The house looks small from the outside, but on the inside he suspects it to be quite roomy. Townhouses have a habit of surprising you.
James is standing outside Lily's family home in London's centre, a street of neatly compact houses with ramschackled roofs, all three storeys high with smoke billowing from their tall chimneys. He knows he's quite near to a place called Covent Gardens but it's a Muggle place and he's never been there before, but the name interests him nonetheless. Maybe he and Lily will go there if the meeting goes well.
He gulps and checks his reflection in the glass of the door frame, hoping the inhabitants inside can't see him yet and trying in vain to make his hair more respectable instead of looking like "an electrocuted mop" as Lily always says affectionately before ruffling it. James doesn't know what 'an electrocuted mop' looks like but he's content to let her say it because it usually means he gets to kiss her, which is always nice.
And at the prospect of kissing Lily a faint blush rises to James' cheeks as he reminds himself that he's about to meet her parents and such thoughts like those are not acceptable. He runs through his mind a checklist of what not to mention, but he knows most of them will end up slipping out anyway and he can only hope Lily's father will not try to murder him on the spot.
Mustering up the little courage he has left, he tentatively knocks on the wood of the door and waits, thinking of happy thoughts like Quidditch and his mother's chocolate brownies to quell his churning stomach.
And then suddenly Lily's standing there with a huge grin on her face and wearing a pretty, white summer dress and James immediately remembers to breathe.
She launches herself into his arms with a delighted squeal as if the three and a half days and five hours they've been apart has been an eternity and begins to kiss him soundly, which makes James cross off immediately about three of the things he shouldn't do in front of her parents, who he knows are watching from the doorway.
But he finds himself not caring so much now and laughs loudly, kissing her again and again until a loud cough from Lily's father pulls them apart and James remembers where he is with re-enforced terror.
However, the wink that Lily sends him as she takes his hand in hers and the mischievous glint in her mother's eyes which is an obvious trait passed on from mother to daughter, assures him that everything will be alright.
And if not, James thinks, then he can always try whisking Lily away on his broomstick.