James moved so that his knee was pressed tightly against Lily's, her hand still secure in his. He couldn't quite believe she was here. Even after weeks of waiting - the idea that she might not show up had been too terrible to consider - it was hard to take in that she had finally arrived. A small, scared of him half expected her to pop back out of existence at any moment.
"You thought Pete was..." he caught himself, his words tailing off. It wasn't important right now. Really bloody weird, but not important.
"Uh, six weeks? A little more? It's been... something." He glanced down at their joined hands, running his thumb absently over her knuckles as he considered his next words.
"Okay, so... stick with me with this. The years 2038. There's been some kind of plague, I guess? The ministry did a bunch of stuff with reproductive spells and muggle technology and mucked it up, and everyone died. Everyone magical, anyway."
It was weird to talk about. Like some strange fairy story. Not like the war at home, which was such a physical presence in their lives that, even now, it seemed to press in against the windows each morning.
"They say Hogwarts decided that wasn't on, so it's been bringing people in from across time. It was September '81 for me. A bit later for Remus, a bit earlier for Sirius."