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Lily wasn’t truly worried about her soulmark until James stopped asking her out.
The requests had been almost as regular as their class schedule, once a week for the past two years. True, he didn’t always seem enthusiastic about it. When he had dated Dolly Abbott, for instance, they had clearly been a joke, and only when she wasn’t around. But it had long been a habit of theirs; there were times when she would even preemptively interrupt him because she could read the signs by now.
It was part of the reason that Lily hadn’t freaked out when her soulmark appeared. Well, hadn’t freaked out too much. She wasn’t sure she even liked Potter, let alone wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, but at least he liked her back. At least, she thought that was what would happen. She figured that she would wait the two months until his birthday, until his mark appeared, and they could figure things out from there. She might even accept one of those date requests. Might. The thought made her just a bit nervous.
But then James’ birthday passed, and the requests stopped. Just stopped cold like that. Lily was probably imagining it, but she couldn’t get it out of her head that everyone had noticed it and that they were all talking about it behind her back. Oh, Potter was still genial, but he was genial to everyone as long as you weren’t in Slytherin. For their… whatever their relationship was, genial was a significant downgrade. For months it had been playfulness and biting sarcasm.
When they got to spring holidays and he still hadn’t asked again, she and Mary holed up in the library. Neither of them came from wizarding families, and so Lily came to the conclusion that there must be some book that would fill in the gaps of their knowledge.
“Oh, oh, Lily, I think I found something here!” Mary elbowed Lily, and she put down
The Power of Love and Other Untamed Magicks.
Then Lily rested her head on Mary’s shoulder as Mary pointed out the passage in question.
“Having a soulmark does not always guarantee a match,” Mary read, “and indeed, with current customs and sensibilities being what they are, it is difficult to know whether or not the soulmark is requited without asking highly improper questions. It is, however, known that a soulmark that has no chance, whether due to the death of the soulmate or a lack of feeling from the partner, will fade over time. Among people who have had such a reaction, some report that the feelings seemed to fade with the mark. Others say that the feelings still linger on. There is a highly-dangerous potion--”
Mary cut herself off there. “Has your mark shown any signs of fading, Lily?”
Lily shook her head as she moved the cuff covering it slightly. “It’s still black.” She traced his name lightly. It was just curiosity, she told herself, that kept her in the library until closing time.
“Well then. That means that there’s still a chance. Whatever that looks like.”
“True,” she said softly. “Very true.” Mary patted her head. “I should just talk to him.”
“I think,” Mary said slowly, “you need to figure out what you want his answer to be first.”
In May, Severus corners her on her way back to the common room from one of Slughorn’s get togethers. He grabbed her arm. “Lily, we need to talk.”
“No, Snape, we don’t.” She shrugged off his grip and tried to start walking, but he stopped her.
“Please. Just for a minute.”
Lily sighed. “I will give you two, but only because you used to be my best friend.”
“I’ve been trying to catch you alone since January. Because, you see,” he says, unclasping the cuff on his wrist as Lily watched with horror, “we’re meant to be together.”
Lily took a step back. It was disarming to see her name there, as if she had signed it herself. She blinked once, twice, while she gathered her thoughts. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“Of course it does. Lily, I l--”
“Severus.” Lily took a breath. “You may have my name on your wrist, but I don’t have yours on mine.”
“What.” His eyebrows narrowed in frustration, and then flattened out into horror. “It’s Potter, isn’t it?” He grabbed her wrist as if to check his suspicion.
She pulled it back. “That’s none of your business!”
He seemed to take that as confirmation. “He’s a bully, Lily. You once called him an arrogant toerag.”
“And you’re a racist,” she said quietly. He moved as if to speak, but she put a hand up to stop him. “I know, I know, you didn’t mean it. But even if I could be convinced that you don’t use that word when I’m not around, all of your friends want me dead because of what my parents are not. And if you’re not standing up to them, then you condone it. You’re at the bare minimum complicit.
“And that, Snape, is why we could never be soulmates.” Lily took that as her cue to make a grand exit. He called after her, but she ignored his shouts.
Part of her felt relieved and even vindicated. Part of her felt bad for the friend that she had once had. But another small part of her whispered
The only thing that soulmarks do is hurt people.
Summer break was annoying Petunia’s fiance and ice cream with Mary and then the Head Girl badge in the mail. It was picking flowers and trying new Muggle fashion and reveling in the little tasks she could perform around the house now that she was no longer under the Trace.
Somehow she was invited to Peter Pettigrew’s bonfire birthday party at the Potters’, and Mary dragged her there because there was an important name on Mary’s wrist, too. Lily spent far too much of her time watching James, noticing how even as his friends got drunker and drunker, he stayed relatively sober, making sure that everyone was alright. Offering space on the couch to those who were too drunk to Apparate. Swapping out Sirius’s drinks with water when he wasn’t looking. Nudging Remus to talk to Mary, and then mocking them when they sat too close. All of this he did, seemingly without noticing that she was watching.
The only time he spoke to her directly the whole night was when he stopped to grill a banana next to her. “You know, I didn’t think you’d actually come, Evans. Otherwise I would have made sure that the bananas were long and thick.”
Lily snorted. “Do you think about the words that come out of your mouth sometimes?”
“Yep,” he said, stuffing the banana with as much chocolate as possible. “Just not when you’re around.”
“I’m flattered. Truly.” She looked at the fire instead of him, but she also brushed a strand of hair back as she smiled.
“You should be.” She could feel him staring at her, her face, her wrist. It would have taken two seconds to take off the cuff and just show him. Two seconds, and she could end the limbo she had found herself in for six months.
Before she could do anything, Mary plopped down beside her. “Lily, Lily, Lily,” Mary said, shaking her arm. “Imma need you to Side-Along me home, because I’m too drunk.”
“You two can always stay here,” James offered.
“Nope. No way that Lily would agree to that. Especially since--”
Lily covered Mary’s mouth. “I think this is my cue to go, Potter. I’ll see you on the train, right?”
James was staring at her intently, but he nodded. “Right. September 1st.”
Then the unthinkable happened.
Lily sat in the hospital room. It smelled like antiseptic potions and cleaning spells. The two sisters were in the same room with a short curtain as a divider if necessary. Kate had visitors streaming in and out of her side almost constantly. Hufflepuffs were like that. Mary would have a few, usually in the afternoon. Lily was there from the moment that visiting hours began until someone kicked her out. Nobody knew what to say.
Lily didn’t cry until Remus and James came. The two of them brought sunflowers, and Lily just broke down because they were Mary’s favorite flowers and the fact that Mary might not ever be able to thank Remus for that was the final straw of a very stressful week.
Her sobs were loud and snot-heavy with little to no restraint. Remus’s hug was surprisingly strong, but she could feel his tears, too, on her shoulder. After he let go, James took her gently by the shoulders and led her to the small lounge in the hallway. James not so much hugged her as he did hold her and give dirty glares to everyone who dared to look for longer than a second.
The first coherent sentence she could pull together was, “Why are you here, Potter?”
James looked at her like she was an idiot. “For Remus. For you.” He tucked her under his chin again as she continued to shake from crying too hard. He ran his hands up and down her arms, and he kissed her forehead. It should have felt like an invasion of her space, Lily wasn’t even sure she truly
liked
him, but he was here and this felt right and maybe that was what having a soulmate was all about.
Lily barely remembered the funeral (just the cloying smell of incense and the absurd clothes some wore to try and look like they belonged in a Muggle church), or the rest of the summer. Even Petunia knew not to annoy her. James, however, wrote to her every day. She never responded; Lily had chosen a cat over a personal owl. None of them asked for a response. Sometimes they contained a line from one of his friends.
Peter sketched that lily for you, this is why he gets all the girls.
Or
Sirius would like you to know that the record for our pickup Quidditch game currently stands at 4-0. But he cheats. Badly.
None of them made her laugh, but some of them made her smile. And that was enough.
And soon (too soon), she was on the train in the head compartment, straightening the badge and waiting for her counterpart. She could do this. She could look at the Slytherin prefects and wonder exactly what they knew. If they knew who the murderers were. If they were the murderers. Heaven help her if Rosier was Head Boy. Meadowes could have it if that was the case. She would resign on the spot.
When James walked into the compartment, Lily thought that he was lost. (Because that was how her life was going lately.) Then she saw the badge on his robes. Her eyes narrowed. “Ha ha, very funny, Potter. Give Remus back his badge.”
“Now that would be a good prank,” he said. “Dumbledore thought he chose one Head Boy, but then suddenly Sirius, Remus, Peter, and I all show up with badges. I wonder if these things have anti-replication spells on them.” His casual words were undermined by the fact that he kept running his fingers through his hair.
“You’re Head Boy.” Obviously. (Good?)
“Shit, Evans, if you’re this hard to convince, this prefect meeting isn’t going to go well.” He was definitely nervous. She was definitely shocked.
Lily cleared her throat. “It’s not… I mean…”
He put his hand up. “S’okay. Moony’ll back me up, even if you won’t. Now, you have about ten minutes to catch me up to the past two years.”
His hand was in his hair again, and Lily mindlessly copied it as she pushed her hair aside to go over her notes. She patently ignored the butterflies in her stomach.
James was not a perfect Head Boy, especially at the start. Quickly the prefects learned that, if they wanted a schedule changed, they should go to him and not Lily. Everything from “emergency” Quidditch practices to “detentions” and to dates got a pass. And he took all every request for a partner switch that anyone raised, even though it took Lily hours to create the perfect schedule.
One Saturday, her schedule was absolutely shredded when all four of the prefects who had been told to report at various points in time did not show up. She tried to get mad at him when he told her. Tried. But he looked like a puppy.
“You know,” she sighed as she shrugged her robes back on, “you can check who actually has detention. You are Head Boy.”
“See, that’s the problem with you,” he said, following her out of the portrait hole. “You just don’t trust people.” Lily didn’t know what to say to that.
As they go through rounds, they talked about everything and nothing. They even found one of their missing prefects in an abandoned classroom. James’s flush showed through his dark skin, and Lily smirked as she made him write the actual detention.
There was a moment, when they reached the Fat Lady’s portrait at the end of the shift, where Lily thought that maybe, just maybe, he was about to ask her out again. He pushed up his glasses, and she stopped in her tracks. She recognized the breath he took from his attempts in fifth year. His hand was in his hair again. She used to think that was arrogance, but she now knew it was a nervous habit.
He was going to ask again. And she realized she was going to say yes.
As they waited for the Fat Lady to come back from her midnight wanderings, he finally said, “Lily, I’m sorry I ruined your night. I shouldn’t’ve changed your schedule.”
She bit her lip. “Well, now you’ve learned I’m always right.” The Fat Lady was back before she could say anything else. James waved goodbye, and Lily trudged up to her dorm with the weight of the newfound feelings.
It was Lily’s turn to take a breath. Play with her hair. She realized how she must look (and for a second she wished that she had the glasses to complete the picture). She obsessed about the moment for two days before coming to the decision that it was about time she showed the initiative in whatever this was or would be.
After Transfiguration, his favorite class, seemed like the best bet (though she didn’t know how she knew it was his favorite). She called out as she packed up her stuff, “James, can we talk for a second?”
He stopped talking to Sirius and Peter abruptly. The three of them look at each other, locked in silent communication, and then the other two took off. “Sure,” James said and stepped down to Lily’s level of the seats. She finished packing up slowly. “You’re not still mad about the schedule, are you?”
“What? No. No.” They walked up the steps and Lily felt a sudden rush of sympathy for James for each time he had done this exact thing, and even for Severus the night he had cornered her. “The thing is,” and she touched her wrist, for just a moment, “I wanted to know if you’d like to go to the Quidditch match on Saturday. With me. As a date.”
James stopped. Some Ravenclaw bumped into him, and he didn’t seem to notice. Rather, his eyes were focused completely on hers. “Shit, Lily. Yes.” And right there, without warning, he ducked his head down to kiss her. And in that moment, Lily would have sworn that her soul was on fire.
Lily didn’t worry about his soulmark until he didn’t say anything about it. Now that they were together, she had sort of just assumed that he would say something. But he was silent for seven months of dating. Past their first time, their first “I love yous,” the disastrous meeting between James and Vernon. Past the shocking request to join the Death Eaters, past graduation, and past moving in together. And so she didn’t say anything either because Lily was brave, but not in this.
It was only when at her sister’s wedding she sat hurt and feeling quite alone that James said anything. She sulked at their table by claiming that her feet hurt. When her parents were away, he picked up her foot and started to rub circles to ease the imaginary pain.
“I feel like everyone leaves me in the end,” Lily admitted. “Severus, Mary, and now Petunia.”
He dropped her foot gently. “I’m not going to.” He took her wrist in his hand and kissed her cuff. She gasped while he took off his own.
And for the second time in her life, Lily saw her name reflected back at her. Instead of revulsion, however, she felt relief and love and gratitude to whatever part of her magic made this possible. She surged forward and kissed him. The kiss went on long enough that she heard her mother’s cousin’s boyfriend clear his throat. Only then did her face flush, and she tried to pull away sheepishly.
James held her face in his hands. He wiped away a tear that slid down her cheek, and she noticed that his eyes were not dry, either. “You knew?” She asked.
He smirked. “You talk in your sleep.”
The blush traveled down her chest. “Wait, why did you stop asking me out, then?”
“You noticed that, then?” He grinned widely, but then shrugged. “When your name showed up on my birthday, I knew it wasn’t a question of
if
but
when
. And then the timeline didn’t seem so important.”
“You are an idiot.” She put her shoes back on and grabbed her bag so that they could leave.
He stood up, holding an arm out. “But I’m also so your soulmate, so who is the real idiot here?” She swatted him with her clutch but then just as quickly kissed him on the cheek. And then they headed home.