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Mothers knew their sons, it was a rule of life. Yet even so, Euphemia Potter knew James better than most mothers knew their sons. After all, she had always prided herself on her observational skills. It was precisely these observational skills which allowed her to understand James’s enough to not even be surprised when he came home during the Christmas holidays and told her he was going to propose, at seventeen, in the middle of a war, to a girl who would make him a target for all the dark lords followers.
She knew the love shared between James and Lily was not some passing folly of youth, it was a bond between two souls who yearned to be one. They knew each other as intimately as a religion, their very glances held the fervor of a prayer. So she gave her young, brilliantly insane son, her mothers ring and pressed it into his hand with a kiss upon his brow. She had in some ways always known it would be Lily so why wait when eternity could be stolen from these young lover’s grasp at any moment?
She had once been told she wouldn’t be able to have children but James, always one to defy the odds, had been born on the sunniest day of June, in the height of summer. He was an effervescent light in her and her husband's life, even as a toddler he smiled more than he cried. Of course, Euphemia would be the first to admit he had flaws, as all young men do. He was proud and often careless but he was growing into a fine young man. Euphemia was more proud of him than she had ever imagined possible because James was a man defined by his love, for his family, for his friends, and of course for his dearest Lily.
Euphemia could still remember the very first time James had mentioned Lily Evans. He was a small, boisterous first year who felt everything with the intensity of a shooting star. He had returned home for the holidays and was regalling Euphemia and Fleamont with tales of his new found friends, who he swore he would love to the end of his days when he suddenly paused and burst out in laughter. When he finally regained his composure enough to explain his reaction to his parents, all they were able to make out was something to do with a girl named Lily Evans and her wicked bat bogey hex. He broke out into laughter again but it eventually morphed into something softer, a smile that was too solemn and sincere to have any place on a first years face, yet there it was, and there it stayed.
In second and third year there were fewer mentions of Lily’s name but they were no less dramatic. James was smitten as much as was possible for a boy who barely counted as a teenager. James and Lily argued incessantly, of this there could be no doubt, but even these arguments seemed a testament of their understanding of each other. They could foresee each other’s points in advance and were a wonderful match when they occasionally turned their penchant for arguing towards someone other than each other. They pushed each other to the edge of anger but never over. There was a type of precision in their relationship that could not be described by hatred, no matter how much they claimed that was the only thing they felt towards each other. So when James would furiously complain about the insulting letters Lily sent him over the holidays, Euphemia would force herself to refrain from asking why she would be sending him letters if she truly detested him so forcefully.
By fourth year a tentative sort of friendship seemed to have formed between James and Lily. They still argued, but with much less venom and with much more muffled laughter involved. They helped each other revise as apparently Lily had explained to James the importance of starting early even though OWL’s were almost two years away and James seemed remarkably willing to accept her logic. Lily taught him the precision needed for potions while James encouraged Lily to think beyond the confines of the books to truly master transfiguration. Euphemia also began to grow increasingly curious about the sort of person Lily was beyond James’s perspective. James was loyal to a fault and Euphemia feared he had picked the wrong person to be loyal to because he had decided from such a young age that Lily deserved his loyalty. However, these fears were eased entirely when she met Lily for the first time and concluded that she deserved James’s loyalty far more than anyone else could. If anything, James should count himself lucky that Lily seemed as infatuated with him as he was with her.
By fifth year everyone, including Euphemia herself, were waiting to hear when the young pair would officially become a couple. Lily had visited the Potter’s home several times that summer and their feelings for each other clearly grew as sweetly as the summer berries in their backyard swelled. They walked along the lake and laughed for hours, their hands clasped gently as though they knew there was no need to cling to each other for there was no risk of the other choosing to pull away. Euphemia, with a mother’s intuition to guide her, predicted there could still go some time before the two ultimately made it official but she knew it would come.
Euphemia was right, as always, when it came to matters concerning James. He feared he would mess the relationship up so he simply waited and willed his love to leave him, but alas, love does not typically obey such convenient demands. Besides, knowing the two of them, it was likely to be quite a dramatic moment when they finally got together.
Once again, Euphemia was right. She heard the story the following holiday and through letters with several of James’s friends. They had been in Charms class and were learning the patronus charm. James and Lily were two of the brightest charms students currently in Hogwarts so it was to no one’s surprise that they both managed to conjure a fully corporeal patronus within the first lesson. What was a surprise however, was that James’s patronus was a stag and Lily’s was a doe. The patronunes rushed towards each other and Lily took James’s hand to pull him into a tender embrace which was only broken by Flitwick’s choked congratulations to them both.
So no, it did not come as any surprise that James was going to propose to Lily before the two of them had even finished school. The young lovers were more in love than most people would experience over five lifetimes and Euphemia was not the sort of mother to prevent her son from doing the only thing that would bring him true happiness.