A/N: This was written for the Who's My Soulmate Prompt Challenge on the HPFC Forum. My prompt was: "Have faith in me. Please." I chose to do Sirius/lily as the soulmates in this story. Basically, this is set in an AU where Voldemort didn't create Horcruxes, James offered his life up for Harry instead of Lily and Voldemort only stunned Lily instead of killing her.
Once upon a time, a mortal made a deal with a devil to help her find a soul mate.
"The first words they say to you will be written on your arms." The devil said.
"Thank you!" Said the naïve girl, never thinking about how even blessings can be curses in the wrong circumstances.
Sirius Black has been in Azkaban prison for exactly 6 days, 3 hours and 8 minutes. He knows this is all his fault but there's nothing he can do.
Lily Evans has been dead for 7 days and 4 minutes. She knows this but knowledge itself will never be enough.
There are other ways this could happen, a parents desperate last move, a baby's last wail, fate crashing down to become a ruin of its own prophecies.
James Potter dies a martyr in every world because this is James: Gryffindor scarfs and badly balanced glasses, Sirius's rock and Lilly's anchor, Peter's and Remus's last hope, the best parent Harry could ever get. He deserves nothing less and much, much more.
Lily Evan's love had send Voldemort to an Albanian forest, a desperate move by an angry young mother. James's love had destroyed Voldemort, but it took his and Harry's lives to do it.
Lily wakes up in the playground of her old neighborhood, swinging the way she had as a child, still in midair; her breath held, legs out to catch herself. She falls but there are hands around her, holding her steady.
Marlene Mckinnon is a hurricane and Dorcas Meadows is the eye of her storm. It's been two years since either of them had lived on outside of cemeteries but they haven't changed a bit. She soaks in every detail of them hungrily, staring at the makeup smudged under Marlene's eyes, Dorcas's bony elbows, the way they lean on each other. She's clinging before she can do anything.
"Marly, Dorcas-"She begins but they just laugh, holding her closer. Guardian angels she thinks before she can stop herself.
"We love you Lils, but it's not us you're waiting for. Stay strong. We'll wait as long as it takes. "
Two butterfly kisses on her forehead are all she gets before their both gone, leaving her alone.
Her parents are next and she's in the old house on Privet Drive this time. Petunia has it now, she thinks, but the thought is fleeting and she having a hard time focusing on anything but the parents sitting in front of her.
"Lily-pad…" He mother chokes out, tears spilling from her eyes, and Lily just wants to put her family back together.
"You were always a brave one, tiger-lily," her father says, his hair streaked with grey but his eyes still flashing, proud and loving.
Her mother frowns now, and Lilly winces. It's been years but she feels like a child now, being scolded and warned.
"Honey, we're so proud but this isn't the end. You aren't dead, merely stunned. You'll be waking up any minute now with nothing more than a headache and a few scrapes. We'll take care of your boys. Go on and live your life," Her mother says, cupping Lily's hands with her own bony ones.
She doesn't even get a chance to say goodbye before their both gone, leaving her with nothing but air held in the hands that once held a choice.
It's this world she's living in now, a champagne-colored daydream of the glory days. It's all haze but things are clearing up. She doesn't have long, and maybe that's why she's breathless, because soon-
The moment she's sees them is like air being knocked out of her lungs. Their so alike in a way she'll never understand; her own wild-haired, kind-hearted family of two.
James Potter runs his hands through his hair the way he's done for years, and grins, "Couldn't stay away for long, Potter?"
Potter. Evans. Lilly. Wife. Friend. Daughter. Head Girl. Phoenix. Student. Mother.
She used to be so many things and now, with James and Harry gone, she's alone.
"You won't be alone." James says suddenly, as if he read her mind. "You'll have Padfoot, always. And Mooney, when you drag him out of the self-pity party he's in."
"It's not the same."
"I know Lils, but I'll take good care of Harry. I promised you, didn't I?"
And that's the problem, she thinks, that James is so certain that the world will be kind and fair.
James, to his credit, always his credit, doesn't say anything, just passes Harry from her arms to his. She breathes it in, the smell of her tiny child that will never grow past two years olds.
"Listen, we don't have a lot of time, but we did a number on Voldy, and you will kinda-be-coming-back-to-life," James mumbled really fast.
"WHAT?!"
"You know what that means right? These words will change to reflect your rebirth. "James traces his fingers through the scribbled sentence on her forearm.
"So I won't have anything left at all, right?" Lily asked bitterly.
"No." James said, as serious as she'd ever seen him. "You'll have us. Your family, no matter how far away."
She barely gets a chance to kiss him goodbye and hand Harry back to him before she wakes up, coughing up dust and the remains of her sanity.
Saint Mungos is hectic and smells like too much air-freshening spells used to cover up the smell of vanished remains.
"You're a miracle. Coming back to life like that- we've never seen anything like it before." Her doctor says, a young man who looks at her like she's a puzzle he needs to solve. Her hearts aches. She doesn't know what part of her is a miracle. Is it where she lived when her family died? If so, she'd rather be dead.
The doctors want to keep her longer, to fuss over her like she's a child, but she refuses. She hasn't been a child since Professor McGonagall stepped into her muggle home that ran on electricity, not magic. Once upon a time, the Evan sisters had been inseparable before a Hogwarts letter tore them apart.
Lily wants to go home. She doesn't have one.
It's her secret, but she looks at the words on her arm late one night, the room illuminated by the lumos charm.
"Have faith in me. Please." The words say, and she feels like crying again. What faith? She doesn't even have any in herself.
She goes to the library first. If she was in her right mind, she would go to the Daily Prophet Office and learn what really happened, but for now, there are more important things for her then what the world thinks of her.
She has things to do, and now, she makes a list:
Sirius Black- Not a Death eater, not a killer, and not the person who doomed them. She has to get him out as soon as she can. His mind was already disorienting enough in this war before adding Dementors to it.
Remus Lupin- Probably getting lost in his grief somewhere. She needs chocolate.
Frank and Alice Longbottom- where are they? Are they even alive? How is Neville?
Mary McDonald- What had happened to her as a muggleborn witch working in the ministry?
Everyone involved in the deaths of her husband and son- they'll get what's coming to them.
She goes to the Ministry first. She can't pull any of this off without Sirius and the only way she can get him back, short of breaking in to Azkaban, is to get the Head of the Magical Law Department to believe in his innocence.
Amelia Bones was offered a spot in the Order of the Phoenix but turned down Albus Dumbledore by threating to arrest him for running an illegal organization of vigilantes. Smart witch, Lily thinks savagely. At this point, Lily trusts Albus Dumbledore as far as she can throw him.
She's a heroine now as far as the wizarding population is concerned, Lilly remembers. Just like me. Lily doesn't dwell on that thought, just applies a glamour before slipping into the Ministry of Magic.
Four hours, twelve hexes and one particularly sickly-sweet conversation with a toad lookalike later, Lily is seated across from Amelia Bones in her office.
"Ms. Potter, I must admit I was not expecting your company." Amelia Bones says, raising an eyebrow.
Lily laughs, a fake sound that echoes through the room. "Yes, I am aware. Otherwise, I would have asked to meet you somewhere else. After all, I've heard some particularly interesting stories about you, Auror Dawlish, and this desk"
Amelia Bones's mouth drops open temporarily and Lily knows she has the edge now, thanks to summer afternoons spend listening to Augusta Longbottom and her goldmine of secrets.
Amelia Bones, however, is nothing less of a professional and she recovers quicker than Lily expected. "What do you want ?"
Lily leans forward. "I want Sirius Black released. NOW."
Here's the thing about insanity- it consumes you and you don't even notice.
Lily gets the honor of opening the door to Sirius Black's cell because none of the guards want to go anywhere near the wing where the maddest of the mad are kept.
He's gaunt, his once-perfect hair tangled around him. "I want revenge." Lilly says. "Will you help?"
"Have faith in me. Please." He coughs out, voice hoarse. "I'm still a marauder, it's my job to create mischief, Lils."
Her eyes are wide open in shock: he's a shade of the man he once was and her husband's best friend. Fate cannot get crueler.
"How did it happen- you used to have James's words on your arm before, right?" Sirius asks, one night when their sitting in front of her fire, gazes blank.
Remus is beside them, passed out from the shock he had received earlier that day after seeing them.
"I came back to life." Lily says.
"If anybody could do it, I'd be you." He says and she's not sure it's a compliment.
Remus has most of the answers she was looking for- Alice and Frank are insane, tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange and her family in the week she'd been trapped between the veils of death and time.
Mary McDonald had fled to the continent while Lilly and her family had been under the Fidelius. She left no address behind to find her at.
Severus Snape is the first causality.
"I told the Dark Lord to spare you, Lily." He pleads.
Lily thinks about Mary crying over being called a mudblood, James dying in an attempt to save Harry. She thinks of Harry's body, lying in a grave in Godric Hollow. Who buried Voldemort's body?
"James would have stopped us. He never would let us kill you." Sirius mocks, a Black no matter how many times he dyes his room Gryffindor red.
"You were always okay with hurting the people I loved." Lily tells him.
Sirius is still taunting Snape, but Lily has no more to say to the young boy who told her she was a witch and the man sold her family out to a man determined to kill them.
"Sectumsempra." She says and turns away from the gushing blood.
She doesn't bother with killing Roduphulus or Rabastan. There won't be anyone getting them out of Azkaban; not with the Voldemort dead at her husband's hands.
She doesn't touch Bellatrix Lestrange either. Sirius's cousin, Andromeda Tonks, called dibs a long, long time ago.
Yaxley. Macnair. Rowle.
She loses count eventually. Sirius is counting enough for both of them. Strange, she muses, that one day she would have to rely on a Black to be her moral compass. Then again, he's not stranger to madness. It runs through his veins from birth.
Lucius Malfoy's blood spills over Diagon Alley, staining his robes.
She leaves Narcissa Malfoy alive. Her conscience will not let her make another child an orphan.
Regulus Black runs; takes the Black's house elf and flees to France.
They don't bother chasing him. He is yet another foolish boy who regrets his misdeeds. There are enough dead boys like him on both sides of the war.
She kisses Sirius almost a year later, when they spot yet another WANTED poster with both their names on it. He tastes like cigarettes and wine and she doesn't feel butterflies. It's all lust and madness and it's exactly what she needs this time around.
They burn Britain to the ground and then run. Remus comes with them. So do the Longbottoms and the Tonks's.
It's not the life she would have chosen for herself as a bright and ambitious girl, a dedicated prefect; a young woman getting married at 18 because she was so in love that she couldn't wait any longer.
But it's hers and after all, she has Sirius to help her create her legacy.