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It smelled like toast and ink and too much sunshine.
James Potter stretched in his bed with a groan that sounded more dramatic than it needed to be, blinking up at the canopy above him like it had personally offended him by letting in morning light.
“Someone tell the sun to sod off,” he mumbled.
“Already tried,” came Sirius’s voice from the next bed. “It ignored me. Rude, really.”
“You two realize,” Remus said from the desk, already dressed and scribbling a letter, “that this is the last time you’ll ever wake up here?”
James cracked one eye open. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true,” Peter said, mouth full of treacle tart he’d smuggled up from the kitchens. “We’re leaving today.”
“I know we’re leaving,” James said, rolling over and tossing a pillow in Sirius’s general direction. “But do we have to say it? That makes it real.”
“We could just stay,” Sirius offered. “Live in the Shrieking Shack. Haunt the grounds. I’ll become a castle poltergeist and trip Snivellus down the stairs every other Tuesday.”
Remus didn’t look up from his letter. “Tempting. But I think you’d get bored after a week.”
“Two weeks,” Sirius said. “I’m very committed to haunting.”
James finally sat up, hair looking even worse than usual, which Sirius hadn’t known was possible.
For a moment, it was just the four of them. In their dormitory. Sunlight cutting across the floor, warm and gold. The walls were still littered with posters and joke spell parchments, as if nothing had changed.
James looked around, trying to memorize everything.
Remus’s worn-out sneakers tucked neatly under his trunk. Peter’s mess of chocolate frog wrappers. Sirius’s robes draped dramatically over the bedpost like he was some sort of gothic prince. And his own corner, cluttered with Gryffindor banners, Quidditch gear, and a poorly framed moving photo of Lily laughing at something he’d said last Hogsmeade.
It felt like the world was trying to pause, just for them.
“You lot coming to breakfast?” Remus asked, finally sealing the letter with a tap of his wand.
“Yeah,” James said, dragging himself out of bed. “But someone else is carrying my trunk.”
“Nope,” Sirius said instantly.
“Prongs,” Peter added, “you have magic. You don’t need us to carry anything.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “You’ll be a father someday, and I sincerely hope your child inherits Lily’s work ethic.”
James snorted. “Who says I want kids?”
The room went quiet for just a second. It was nothing. A blink.
Then Sirius said, “You’d be a good dad.”
James grinned. “Obviously.”
“You’d name them something mad,” Peter added. “Like… Fleamont Junior.”
James gasped in mock outrage. “How dare you insult my heritage!”
Remus stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Come on. Last Hogwarts breakfast. Don’t want to miss the eggs. Or the emotional trauma.”
They filed down the stairs in their usual chaos, bumping shoulders and tripping over each other on the way to the Great Hall. James took one last look around the common room, then whispered to it under his breath:
“Thanks.”
He didn’t know what for, exactly. For keeping them safe. For giving them something golden before the dark. For every laugh, every prank, every silent comfort after a full moon.
The Great Hall buzzed with celebration. Laughter. Clinking goblets. Dumbledore stood smiling at the front table. Lily waved him over with that smile that made everything brighter, like she’d known him forever.
James sat down between her and Sirius.
“Big plans, Mr. Potter?” Lily teased.
“Take over the world. Start with breakfast.”
And he did.
He kissed Lily’s cheek. He laughed so hard with Sirius he nearly choked on his pumpkin juice. He and Peter transfigured toast into tiny flying broomsticks, and Remus pretended to be annoyed but couldn’t stop smiling.
It was perfect.
Almost painfully so.
And that was the irony of it.
He had no idea that less than two years from now, he’d be gone.
No idea that he’d never see the castle again.
No idea that the baby Lily teased him about having would live—but he wouldn’t.
He didn’t know.
And maybe that was the mercy of it.
Because for now, he was just James.
Just a boy who loved his friends. Who loved Lily Evans. Who finished his final Hogwarts breakfast with crumbs on his collar and a future wide open like the sky.
The last golden day.
And he was so happy.