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The cottage by the sea is charming in the way brochures promise. White curtains. Blue kitchen tiles. Salt air and too much sunlight.
James had booked it as a surprise. A spontaneous getaway. A treat for both of them.
Severus had looked at the dates, then at James, then at the dates again.
I have a research trip, he’d said. I told you. Three times.
James had squinted at him. “You did?”
The manuscripts. Severus will be heading to Edinburgh. The library that smells of dust and—
“Right, right, yes.” James had waved a hand. “You go do your brilliant manuscript things. I’ll go anyway. It’ll be nice.”
Severus had given him a look that said many things, most of them unflattering.
James had kissed him before he could say any of them. Go. Be brilliant. I’ll be fine.
He had meant it.
He means it now, standing in the kitchen at half seven in the morning, staring at the two cups of tea he has just made.
He stares at them for quite a long time.
Then he picks up his own cup and very deliberately does not look at the other one.
The cottage is lovely.
It is also very quiet.
James discovers this on the first morning, in the specific way you discover something you already knew but hadn’t really understood yet — the way you know the sea is cold until you’re actually standing in it.
He wakes up and turns over. His arm sweeps automatically across the other side of the bed.
Cold. Smooth. Wrong.
He blinks at the ceiling for a moment.
Right.
He gets up. Makes tea. Pours two cups. Stares at them.
He makes eggs. Two plates. Carries them to the table. Stares at those too.
“He’s not even here,” he tells the second plate.
It doesn’t argue.
He eats both servings anyway.
Later he walks along the shore and slows down near the tideline without thinking about it, because Severus dislikes uneven sand. He turns to say something about the gulls — they sound exactly like Professor McGonagall when she’s caught a sixth year doing something stupid — and there’s nobody there.
His chest does something strange. Not painful. Just — present. Like a reminder that keeps going off in an empty room.
He picks up a shell. Turns it over. Sets it back down.
He walks back to the cottage and makes another cup of tea and pours two again.
He doesn’t notice until the second one goes cold.
James lasts three nights before he steals Severus’ pillow.
He tells himself it’s purely practical. His pillow is fine. The other one is just — objectively better. Flatter. More aerodynamic. Whatever...
He drags it into his arms and tucks his face against it.
It smells like crushed herbs and parchment and something sharp that Severus insists does not cling to him from the potions work. (It absolutely does.) James breathes in slowly.
“Don’t get smug about this,” he mutters into the fabric.
He imagines Severus’ voice, perfectly dry: Potter. That is my pillow.
“Well you should have taken it with you then.”
He squeezes it tighter.
He’s asleep inside five minutes.
On the fourth day, James goes to the local market.
He is just browsing.
He is absolutely not buying things for Severus.
He picks up a jar of dark plum jam and remembers the first time Severus stayed over and stood in James’ kitchen staring at the pantry like it had personally wronged him. You own nothing that isn’t aggressively sweet, he’d said, with deep offense.
James had made him try the jam.
Severus had taken one precise, suspicious bite, chewed slowly, and said: This is tolerable.
James had felt as though he’d won something enormous.
He puts the jar in his basket.
He finds a dark wool scarf at the next stall — thick, practical, neatly stitched — and holds it up. He can see it so clearly it almost aches: Severus with his chin buried in the fabric, pretending he isn’t pleased, wearing it for the next six months and denying it was a gift.
James buys it without deliberating.
He also buys the jam.
And a small jar of the honey, because Severus puts it in his tea when he thinks James isn’t watching.
He carries it all home carefully, like the cottage might feel less empty with evidence of Severus arranged around it.
It does, a little.
Not enough.
James hears wings outside the window on day five and is across the room before he’s finished thinking.
“Sev—”
It’s not Severus’ owl.
It’s a large, unimpressed tawny thing with a copy of the Daily Prophet tied to its leg. It blinks at James with the expression of an owl that has seen a great many things and is not surprised by any of them.
James deflates like a punctured balloon.
“Oh,” he says. “Right.”
He unties the Prophet. He gives the owl a biscuit because it came all this way and it’s not its fault.
He sits back down.
He stares at the Prophet without reading it.
He is fine.
He tries reading one of Severus’ potion texts in the evenings.
This is not a good idea, but he’d packed it by accident — slipped it into his bag thinking it was his own book — and now it’s here and it smells like Severus’ study and the notes in the margins are in that precise, slanted handwriting James could pick out of a thousand others.
Idiotic methodology, says one margin note. Then, three pages later: Idiotic methodology. Then: See previous note. Idiotic.
James snorts.
“You wrote idiotic methodology three times,” he says out loud.
He looks up from the page automatically, like he’s expecting a response. Like Severus is going to look up from his own reading in the opposite chair and raise an eyebrow and say something devastatingly dry about people who can’t appreciate rigorous academic criticism.
The chair is empty.
James looks at it for a moment.
“You’d be very smug about this chapter,” he tells it.
He reads another page.
He doesn’t understand most of it. But he reads it again anyway.
At night, the cottage talks to itself —creaking floorboards, the sea doing what the sea does.. wind at the eaves.
James lies on his back and stretches his arm across the other side of the mattress. He’s been doing it every night. He can’t seem to stop.
His hand lands on cool linen.
He exhales
He rolls onto his side and faces the empty space, and he feels — not sad, exactly. More like someone left a light on in a room at the end of a long hallway, and he keeps looking at it.
“Hope you’re eating,” he says to the dark. “Hope the library is everything you dreamed of. Hope you’re being at least a little nice to the archivists.”
He pauses.
“They’re just trying to help.”
He smiles a little.
Severus had packed with extraordinary precision. Three jumpers. The thicker books. A small vial of calming draught he’d slipped in between his socks in a way he clearly thought James hadn’t noticed, for the crowded parts of the journey.
James had tucked a chocolate frog into the inner pocket of his coat.
He wonders if Severus has found it yet. Whether he’d rolled his eyes, or kept it, or eaten it quietly and said nothing.
The thought makes something warm settle in his chest, despite everything.
I thought you might need something sweet. I folded it into the lining of your coat.
Chocolate would help.
I’m still thinking of you.
The fireplace flares green one evening while James is lying on the sofa doing nothing useful.
He sits upright so fast he nearly tips off the cushions.
“Sev—”
Sirius Black’s head floats in the flames, already grinning.
“Well,” Sirius says, “that’s very interesting.”
James’s shoulders drop
“Oh.”
“You thought I was Snape.”
“No.”
“You absolutely thought I was Snape.”
“I heard a noise,” James says with great dignity. “I was startled.”
Sirius looks at him with the expression of someone who has just been handed a wonderful gift. “Prongs,” he says, delighted, “you are pathetic.”
James throws a cushion at the fireplace.
Two days after Sirius’ first visit, all three of them come through.
Sirius first, then Remus, then Peter looking slightly winded because Peter always looks slightly winded when Sirius is involved. They stand in the middle of the cottage and look around. The blanket on the sofa. The two mugs on the kitchen counter. The calendar on the wall with one date circled in red — three times — which Remus notices immediately and says nothing about.
Yet.
“You look terrible,” Sirius announces.
“Cheers.
“Victorian sulking. Haunted expressions. Like a man in a painting who isn’t sure he still exists.”
“I’m fine.”
Remus is still looking at the counter. “You made two cups of tea.”
“I like—”
“Symmetry,” Peter offers helpfully.
“Yes. Thank you, Peter.”
Sirius sits down in the armchair, which is Severus’ armchair, and stretches out like he owns it. “James,” he says. “Mate. It’s been eight days.”
“I know it’s been eight days.”
“And you’re haunting a seaside cottage and making tea for a man who isn’t here.”
“I make tea for two because it’s a habit,” James says, which is true and also completely beside the point. “And I’m not haunting anything. I’m on holiday.”
“You’ve circled the same date three times,” Remus says mildly, nodding at the calendar.
James does not look at the calendar. “It’s a bold visual reminder.”
“Of what?”
“Of when he gets back.”
“Do you need reminding?”
“No,” James admits. Then: “It’s in nine days. Well — eight and a half. The train gets in at quarter past two, platform four, and he’ll probably be tired from the journey so I’m thinking we come back here for a few days before—”
He stops.
Sirius and Remus are looking at him.
Peter is also looking at him.
“What?” James says.
“Nothing,” says Sirius, in a tone that means the opposite.
James slumps back onto the sofa. “He’s been gone eight days. Eight. And I — I keep expecting him. I slowed down on the beach yesterday because he doesn’t like the soft sand near the dunes. I poured two cups of tea this morning and yesterday morning. I found his potion book and I’ve been reading it in the evenings even though I don’t understand half of it, and yesterday I started telling him something funny and he wasn’t—” He stops. Gestures at the air. “He just wasn’t there.”
“Where was the funny thing directed?” Remus asks.
“The empty armchair.”
Sirius presses his mouth together very hard.
“I also asked him where the salt was,” James adds.
Peter blinks. “Where was it?”
“Right in front of me on the table.”
Sirius loses the battle and starts laughing.
“You’re supposed to be supportive,” James tells him.
“I am being supportive. This is fond laughter. There’s a difference.”
“Is there...'
“James.” Remus sits down on the other end of the sofa. His voice is kind. “You just miss him. That’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
James is quiet for a moment.
“It’s not even a sad missing,” he says, which is the truest way he can put it. “It’s just — constant. Like a song stuck in your head except the song is Severus and the song has opinions about potion methodology.”
“And I think I want him to spend time in the cottage with me..”
Peter makes a small noise that might be aw.
Sirius doesn’t laugh this time. He just looks at James with something fond and slightly insufferable, the way he does when he’s pleased about something.
“He’ll be back in eight and a half days,” Remus says.
“Eight days and—” James checks the clock— “four hours.”
Nobody says anything.
“I’ve done the arithmetic,” James says. “Twice.”
“We can see that,” says Remus.
“He’s going to be fine,” James says. “He is fine. He’s brilliant and he’s exactly where he wants to be and I’m glad he went, I genuinely am, I just—”
He stops.
“I just want him back,” he finishes, simply.
The room is quiet for a moment, warm and easy, the way it gets when nothing needs to be fixed.
Sirius props his chin on his hand. “You know,” he says, “for someone who spent six years convinced Snape hated him, you really went the other direction.”
James throws another cushion at him.
James tries to charm the calendar so the days flip faster.
This does not work. Obviously. He knew it wouldn’t work. He did it anyway.
He stands in front of it the next morning.
Eight days.
He pokes the circled square. “You’re useless,” he tells it.
He circles the date one more time.
Just so it knows he’s serious.
He writes a letter on day ten.
He sits at the desk with the parchment in front of him and dips his quill and writes:
Miss you terribly.
He stares at it.
He crosses it out.
He writes:
The cottage is nice. Weather’s been decent.
He crosses that out too.
He writes:
Found a scarf at the market you’ll pretend not to like. Also jam. Come home.
He stares at that for a long moment.
He crosses out Come home and writes Hope the manuscripts are everything you wanted.
He sends it.
Then he sits by the window for the next hour waiting for a reply, in the specific way of someone who knows the owl won’t be back for at least half a day and is waiting anyway.
The owl returns at four in the afternoon.
Severus’ handwriting on a small piece of parchment.
The manuscripts are extraordinary. The archivist is pleasant- don't worry, I didn't fight anyone.
The calming draught was unnecessary and I did not use it. Thankfully.
A pause in the ink.
I found the chocolate frog.
James reads it three times. He folds it very carefully and puts it in his coat pocket.
He feels stupidly, completely, thoroughly fine.
The night before Severus comes home, James doesn’t sleep much.
Not in a bad way. Not in an anxious way. More like the night before something good, when you keep waking up and checking and finding that it’s still not morning yet.
He lies on his side facing the empty half of the bed. Severus’ pillow is still in his arms. He’s given up pretending that’s about anything.
“Tomorrow,” he says, quietly, to the dark.
He imagines the train. The platform. Severus stepping down with his bag, slightly rumpled from travel, looking faintly irritated at the world in general.
James smiles into the pillow.
“Finally,” he says.
He closes his eyes.
This time, sleep comes easy.
James arrives at the station fifty-three minutes early.
This is not an accident. This is not a miscalculation. This is a deliberate and considered decision made by a reasonable adult who simply wants to be certain.
Sirius arrives nine minutes after him, follows by Remus, followed by Peter.
“Fifty-three minutes early,” Sirius says, by way of greeting.
“I wanted good positioning.”
“For what.”
James gestures at the platform in a way that suggests the answer should be obvious.
Remus checks his watch. “The train won’t arrive for another forty-four minutes.”
“I know.”
“James.”
“I know.”
He paces.
He checks the clock. Looks at the tracks. Checks the clock again.
Sirius leans against a pillar eating a pasty he produced from nowhere. “You know,” he observes, “most people wait outside the station until closer to arrival time.”
“I’m not most people.”
“You’ve looked at the clock nine times.”
“The clock might be wrong.”
“It’s not wrong.”
“It could be.”
Peter is quiet for a moment. “What if the train’s late?”
James turns to look at him with an expression of such naked alarm that Sirius inhales pasty.
“Why would you say that,” James says.
“I’m just—”
“Why would you say that, Peter—”
“It was a hypothetical—”
“Don’t,” James says. “Don’t.
Remus pats Peter’s arm consolingly.
James goes back to watching the tracks.
“He's going to be on time,” he mutters, mostly to himself.
Sirius, pasty recovered, gives him a look that is almost gentle. “Forty-three minutes, Prongs.”
“I know.”
“He’s going to step off that train and you’re going to embarrass yourself and it’ll be wonderful.”
“I’m not going to embarrass myself.”
“You’re going to run across the platform.”
“I’m absolutely not going to run across the—”
The distant sound of a whistle.
James’s head snaps toward the tracks.
“That’s not it yet,” Remus says. “That’s the eleven fifteen coming into platform two.”
James exhales.
He continues to stare at the tracks.
He checks the clock.
Time, which has been moving at the pace of cold treacle for two weeks, somehow manages to move even slower in the final forty minutes. James paces. He stands still. He paces again. He rehearsed what to say on the walk over here — something casual, something easy, good trip? or how were the manuscripts? — and none of it sounds right. None of it sounds like what’s actually been sitting in his chest for fourteen days.
A whistle.
Then the sound of the train.
James goes completely still.
“There it is,” Peter says.
The train rounds the bend, slowing, enormous and loud, and James watches it the way he watched Quaffle throws in his playing days — completely, only, with his whole body.
It stops.
Doors open.
Passengers stream out.
James scans. He can’t help it. He’s scanning before he’s even decided to.
Witch with a trunk. Family with two children. Wizard with a very large owl that is unhappy about the situation.
And then —
There.
Black hair. Dark coat. Bag over one shoulder. Severus picks his way off the train with the careful, deliberate movement of someone who has spent fourteen hours on a journey and is deeply unimpressed by most of the last fourteen hours.
He steps onto the platform.
His eyes move across the crowd.
They find James.
He stops walking.
Something in his face changes — small, subtle, the kind of change you’d miss if you didn’t know to look for it. His expression doesn’t soften, exactly. It just — opens. Just a little. Just enough.
James does not run.
He tries extremely hard not to run.
He fails at the last moment and the fast walk becomes a faster walk becomes absolutely running, and he hears Sirius say “there it is” behind him, and he doesn’t care, he stops caring about that entirely the moment he’s close enough.
“You’re early,” Severus says.
James is slightly out of breath. “You were gone for centuries,” he says.
“Two weeks.”
“Centuries.”
Severus looks at him. Looks at him properly, in that way he has, like he’s reading something. “You look terrible,” he says.
“I missed you,” James says, because there’s nothing else to say and he’s done pretending otherwise.
Something flickers across Severus’ face.
James pulls him in before he can think about it — both arms, properly, face tucked against Severus’ shoulder — and Severus goes still for exactly one second, the way he always does, like he’s still surprised that this is something James does, that this is something he does, and then his arms come up around James’ back and he holds on.
James exhales like he’s been holding that breath for fourteen days.
Because he has been
More or less
“You’re making a scene,” Severus says, into his shoulder.
“Don’t care.”
“People are staring.”
“Let them.”
Severus makes a small, resigned noise. His arms tighten anyway.
James stays exactly where he is.
After a moment he pulls back just far enough to actually look at him. He can’t help it. He puts his hands on Severus’ face, briefly, before remembering they’re in a train station, and settles for his shoulders instead, which is slightly more reasonable. Severus allows it.
“You made two breakfasts the morning before I left,” Severus says, quietly.
James stills. “How do you know about that.”
“Remus mentioned it in a letter.”
“Remus.” James makes a note to have words with Remus. “I was — it was habit.”
“You also, apparently, made two breakfasts every morning after.”
“It’s just—”
“A habit,” Severus finishes.
“A habit,” James confirms.
Severus looks at him. “You wrote to me,” he says, “that the cottage was nice and the weather was decent.”
“It was nice. The weather was decent.”
“I saw you crossed out come home.”
James opens his mouth.
Closes it.
“I found the chocolate frog,” Severus says, softer. “On the second day. In my coat pocket.”
James swallows.
“Good,” he manages.
“I kept it,” Severus says. “I didn’t eat it. I just—”
A small pause. “Um…kept… it.”
James stares at him
He feels, genuinely and completely, like his heart is trying to do something his ribcage doesn’t have room for.
“Sev,” he says, eloquently.
“Don’t,” says Severus.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You have a face.”
“I just — you kept it—”
“Potter—”
James kisses him, which is easier than words and says the same thing anyway.
From somewhere behind him Sirius makes a long, theatrical noise of vindication. Remus tells him to shush. Peter is definitely crying and will deny it for years.
James doesn’t break the kiss.
Severus, after a moment, kisses him back.
It was just two weeks.
James knows that. He’s not dramatic about it. He’s a functioning adult wizard who ate three meals a day and slept reasonably well and went for walks and bought jam at the market and didn’t do anything embarrassing except for a few private conversations with an empty armchair and a pillow that smells like potions.
He was fine.
He just happened to also pour two cups of tea every morning, and slow down on the sand even when no one was there to need the firmer ground, and send a letter with come home crossed out, and keep checking the clock.
He was fine.
He just loves Severus in all the small, automatic ways — in every reflex and habit and reach across an empty bed — and two weeks was long enough to notice exactly how many of those there are.
Severus tucks himself against James’ side on the train back to the cottage, which he would never do anywhere with more people, and James puts his arm around him without thinking, and they sit like that while the countryside moves past the window and the afternoon light goes golden.
James looks at him.
Severus is already asleep, or nearly — head tipped slightly against James’ shoulder, the tight set of his expression finally gone loose with tiredness and warmth.
James watches the window.
And then everything feels right again
END OF STORY