With two days left in Christmas holidays, Lily Evans came through the deserted corridors of Hogwarts castle and let herself into the Head Boy/Head Girl office for the first time since falling in love with James Potter. The chairs, the rug, the shelves, the schedules tacked to the walls inked in both of their handwriting - all of it was the same as before the holidays, and also completely different.
James hadn't returned yet, but he was visible in every little thing. He was there in a quill on the desktop that he had once tucked behind his ear, unwittingly making himself look something like a Muggle pirate with the plume curling and flouncing at his temple. She'd laughed at him, but it hadn't embarrassed him. He'd enjoyed it, delighted to have her alone in this room, their room, laughing. She lifted the quill from the desk and slid it behind her own ear.
On the coat stand in the corner hung an assortment of Gryffindor scarves of all lengths and sizes, ones forgotten all over the school and its grounds, returned here to wait for their owners to come looking to claim them. And draped over this tangle of red and gold knitting was a quidditch practice jacket marked with James's number and name.
Yes.
Lily folded herself into the jacket, feeling inside its lining for the over-long sleeves. It was a bit grubby, grass stains from the quidditch pitch on the cuffs and elbows. She gathered the collar close to her face. It smelled like James, but not like the clean James sitting in the library at the Potters' manor or coming to visit her parents in Cokeworth. It smelled like a warm, athletic, musky James, lithe and woodsy.
She was still enthralled with smelling it when behind her, there was a crash of wood on stone. She jumped and turned to see that someone had flung the door of the office open forcefully enough to send it banging into the wall.
"Severus," she said. "Honestly, a simple knock will do."
He shut the door with equal flourish and came swooping into the room like an enormous, irate bat. His physical presence was maturing, growing tall and grave, the darkness about him less comical than it used to be, as he grew into his own manner.
"I must see it," he told her.
She stepped back. "What are you on about now?" she asked, though she was slowly reaching past James's jacket to close her hand around the prophecy orb in the pocket of her robes.
Dressed as she was, in clothing of Potter's, Severus could only glance at her for an instant before wrenching his neck away. "Come now, Lily. You said you had a prophecy orb of your own already. If you can show it to them, prove it to them, I'm sure they'd take you on as a diviner instead of a potioneer, like you wanted."
She scoffed. "Them? Your Death Eaters? When did I ever say I wanted to be brought on by them as anything at all?"
In a swirl of black robes he was behind the desk, in front of her, his hands on her wrists in spite of them being clad in James Potter's muddy cuffs. She had to be told. She had to see that in order to survive, all of this nonsense needed to be set aside. "Enough, Lily. You've had your holiday fling with the insufferably arrogant golden boy. You've got out of your system what you know in your heart the pair of your cannot sustain - "
"I know no such thing - "
"And you've had your time as the exalted Head Girl of Hogwarts. Everyone has seen you elevated to that honour. Savour the achievement, but know that you must now accept that the only way for you to stay safe in the coming days is to come along with me. They won't tolerate much more of your defiance. In this, to defy me is to defy the Dark Lord himself. Please, Lily..."
Lily was still struggling to free herself from his hold on her wrists, and as she did, Severus sensed that her right hand was not empty. He gasped at the sight of the smooth, shiny, grey contour visible between her fingers.
"That's it there. The orb. It's real." He was nearly smiling, relieved to have something to report to the others, something to make her irresistible to them.
"It's real. And it's none of your business," she said, tugging hard enough that he should have let go of her. But he continued to hold her somehow, as if drawing from a reserve of strength beyond his own.
At last he released her left hand, shifting his fingers as if to touch the orb himself, her fingers not long or broad enough to cover it completely.
"Don't!" she shouted. "Don't touch it, Sev. Prophecies have been known to seriously injure people who take them without proper consent of the people they pertain to. If you'd taken divination yourself you'd know that. Stop, believe me - "
His fingers halted in their advance. He rubbed their tips together, weighing the risks, thinking. He had begun moving toward the orb again when another voice called out.
"What's all this then?" It was James, standing in the open door of the office, half scowling, half smirking. "Looking good Evans," he said, nodding at the quill billowing over her ear and his jacket on her back. "Tell me what we can do for you, Snape, and then you can be on your way."
Lily was speechless, stunned to hear James speaking so civilly to Severus, as if he was an ordinary student visiting the Head Girl for help with some ordinary problem, and doing it in an ordinary way.
Snape was speechless as well, his hand still closed like a claw around Lily's wrist as she held the orb. And here was Potter, too proud, too superior to Snape now that Lily accepted him to even bother being angry.
James broke the silence. "Accio prophecy," he said. The orb shot out of Lily's hand and James caught it in his own bare palm.
In spite of Lily's warning, Severus lunged to catch it as it flew by him. Once he knew he'd missed it, Severus stood waiting, teeth bared, brows drawn, braced to see James collapse onto the floor, injured by the protective spell on the orb. There was no fall. James simply pocketed it himself, as if he had every right to it.
This was the final insult. Snape would bear no more. He snarled, spun in a circle behind James and Lily's desk, and swooped out of the room even more battishly than he'd arrived.
James dropped everything he still held - books and parchments falling to the floor. Lily filled his arms. He plunged his face into her hair, knocking the quill from behind her ear. "Are you alright?" he breathed.
She nodded into his chest. "Yeah, of course," she said. "Thank you for staying so calm."
James let out his breath. "Wasn't easy," he muttered. He stooped to press his forehead to hers. "That git. He completely ruined my plans for our touching Head Boy/Head Girl reunion."
"Reunion?" she laughed. "I saw you only yesterday. We haven't even been separated for twenty-four hours."
"Too long," he said, his mouth settling just below her ear.
She melted into him even as she protested. "James, he's left the door open."
He pulled her close and walked himself backward, kicking the door shut and leaning against it. "There we are," he said. "Now may I please snog you in this room? I've only been fantasizing about it since I got the letter last summer announcing I was Head Boy."
Confident in her reply, James was already kissing her cheeks as she made her answer. "Will that work? Or is this one of those rooms charmed against unwed snogging and that sort of thing?"
"Only one way to find out." He spun around, her back against the door instead of his now, as he brought their lips together. She tipped her head, her skull against the wood, the nape of her neck cradled in the bunched hood of the quidditch jacket. Between the door and James's hands gripped to the collar at the front of the jacket, she was unable to back away as the kiss became more involved. Her heart rate jumped as she sensed her own captivity. The combination of helplessness to him and trust in him was shockingly invigorating. She felt it in her knees and fingertips. Her hands tracked up his arms, covering his fists as they held onto either side of the collar of the jacket, loosely but firmly.
"You need to keep this jacket," he breathed into her mouth. "Wear it everywhere. Always. Graduation, Petunia's wedding, our wedding night - "
"James - "
"It's not just me, it's the prophecy."
"But you'll need your jacket for practice. You'll get cold out there." Her advice made sense in spite of the breathy tremor in her voice.
He shook his head, and she took advantage of the return of her range of motion to lean into a kiss against his neck. "No," he said, "you've only to let me see you wearing my name in the stands. That'll keep me warm enough at practice."
She was turning, bringing him with her, his back against the door now. "But that's something a quaffle-bunny would do," she protested. "So tacky."
"Quaffle-bunny?"
"Someone who chases quidditch players with lascivious intent," she explained, rising toward his neck again.
"Well, I've got news for you, Evans - stars - Lily, you're going to leave a mark if you - oi! Yeah, that ought to..."
The door was shuddering against his spine, shaken by heavy knocking from the other side, three fists pounding out of rhythm, three voices calling out to them.
"Open up!"
"I require the immediate assistance of the Head Boy!"
"Potter, stop your drooling all over that innocent girl."
Lily' mouth broke from James's skin with a crack. "What did he say about drooling?"
James groaned a laugh. "It's Padfoot. All of them really. Thanks to being part rat and dogs, they can smell when you've got my saliva on you - "
"Open up!"
" - and they can hear voices through doors."
Lily was wiping her mouth and throat, tossing James's jacket back on the stand, and trying to look properly busy, sitting at the desk. "They didn't hear or smell anything."
"Right," James smirked.
He let the lads inside.
"Back at it already, you two?" Remus said. "Guess that's why you're Head Boy and not us, eh James? So dedicated to this office."
"I must know," Sirius said, one arm around Remus's neck, the other around Peter's. "What did the pair of you do to Snape? He came skulking past us in the corridor like he was positively traumatized. I was almost afraid for him."
Lily looked up from where she was pretending to work. The lads were still jovial but her face was grave. "Close the door and I'll tell you."
James obeyed and came to sit on the desk at her side.
"Severus has approached me twice in the past two days, trying to recruit me for the Death Eaters," she said. "Once at my house, and again here, moments ago."
James scoffed, angry. "That was his idea of a membership drive, was it?"
Sirius hummed. "Recruiting, just like Regulus did with the lot of us."
"Exactly like that," Lily nodded. "He even said that to defy him was to defy their Dark Lord, or whatever he's got them calling him now."
James was grumbling. "What did he give as their reason? With us they were on about the map. What exactly do they want from you? I thought they would have objected to your parents, or some such rubbish."
She dropped her head into her hands. "Severus is arguing I'm exceptional. They know I've already produced a prophecy orb. I didn't intend for Severus to find out, but he did."
A round of hissing and groaning sounded from the lads.
"But he doesn't know what the prophecy's about," Lily finished.
"Yeah, well none of us does," Peter added. "It's all mysterious and weird."
"It is. But Severus must know now that the orb has got something to do with James and me, together. He saw James take it from me without getting rebuffed by a protective spell just now," Lily admitted.
James hung his head too. "Ack, that's right. Sorry, I just couldn't stand him looking at it. Seemed obscene."
Remus shook his head, and Sirius said, "That's an awfully careless thing for the smartest students in the school to let happen, isn't it?"
"That's just what it is," Lily agreed, miserable.
James covered her hand in his. "Snape and his creep friends have no idea about sharing a prophecy with someone, or love magic or - or soulmates, and what have you. They don't trade in any of that and never will."
"We should go to Dumbledore anyway," Remus said.
Peter's eyes bugged in alarm. "What can he do?"
"We don't know, Pete. That's why we'd go to see him," Sirius said. "He should at least be warned that Death Eater recruitment has moved beyond flattery and family loyalty and into threats. Someone could get hurt here at school."
James decided. "Right, let's go then."
As Head Boy and Girl, Lily and James had special access to Dumbledore, a password of their own at the gargoyle to the headmaster's tower. They had to wait a little, but at last the spiral staircase was emerging from the floor to bear them up for an audience with him.
When they arrived, Dumbledore stood as if in conversation with a red bird, his familiar, his phoenix. Remus's pulse surged at the sight of it, as if the wily old man was giving them a sign, an invitation. The Order of the Phoenix - perhaps it was real, and perhaps it was something they could ally themselves with, and use to protect each other.
"Ah, my senior Gryffindors," Dumbledore said as left the bird to receive them. "And Miss Evans and Mr. Potter coming hand in hand. Yes, this happens with our Head Boys and Girls quite often. Glad to have been of help."
His smile faded when instead of blushing, James and Lily simply nodded.
It was Remus who spoke. "Sir, we'd like to report some movement among Death Eater recruiters during the break…" He had a way with talking to adults, explaining things clearly, calmly, but still with a sense of importance. And he could talk convincingly about the Death Eaters' interest in the lads as if it was general, without betraying the secret map or the orb.
Dumbledore hummed as Remus finished. "Threatening to press you into their service by force. It's the natural progression of their movement, I suppose. Yet most troubling to see realized. And I regret to see Regulus and Severus involved. Yes, most troubling."
"Is there anything we can do beyond refusing them?" Remus pressed. "Any way to organize ourselves? A movement we can rally 'round?"
Dumbledore sat chuckling behind his desk. "You have heard of our Order."
"Yes sir."
"Last term of school, so you will all be of age by now, isn't that right?" He needed no answer. It was true. "We tend to be more careful with Muggle-born students like Miss Evans. Their parents have the number eighteen in their heads as being of age. But your birthday is in a couple of weeks, isn't it?"
Lily nodded. "Yes sir."
"Has Miss McKinnon been speaking to you of the Order?" he asked her.
"Marlene? Oh no. She's said nothing."
Dumbledore sat back, satisfied. "There's a good girl. Stay close to her, Miss Evans. Her parents are Order members and it's afforded her certain privileges already. If it turns out the five of you can do more, a message from the Order will come to you through Marlene McKinnon." He was standing up, as if to show them out. "Thank you so much for coming by. I will see you all at - "
"What about this, sir?" James had stepped forward, the prophecy orb balanced in his fingertips.
Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Mr. Potter, did you manage to produce - "
"No, it wasn't me," he rushed to say. "It was Lily. She's been studying divination at school and on her own. And she's talented. But this thing - it just kind of happened. And Snape knows about it."
Dumbledore stooped, one eye shut to inspect the orb as James held it. "Miss Evans conjured this, but you can handle it. So it's a prophecy about the pair of you?"
"We had assumed so, sir," Lily said, stepping up to take James's free hand.
"Pardon me for intruding," Dumbledore said, "but did this orb appear at an important juncture in your budding relationship?"
Lily nodded, finally blushing. "Yes sir."
Maybe she imagined it, but at that moment, Lily thought she saw a shudder run through Dumbledore's posture.
"I'm sorry, gentlemen," he said, his arms extended toward Sirius, Remus, and Peter. "I need a word alone with my Head Boy and Girl, if you please."
Sirius twitched as if about to protest being sent away with nothing but a vague sense of having to wait, but Remus clapped a hand on his shoulder to lead him out. It didn't bear arguing. James would tell them everything later.
The staircase ground back into the floor, and James and Lily were alone with the headmaster. He brought his hands together in a slow, soundless clap. "Among our kind, a prophecy at the moment a love match is declared is the hallmark of soulmates. You know this."
"Yes," James said when Dumbledore didn't go on. "That's what my parents said as well."
"They would have been expecting it," Dumbledore said, tapping his chin. "Fleamont and Euphemia would have made a star chart at your birth. Surely they would have foreseen such a destiny for their heirs."
"I suppose they did," James agreed.
Dumbledore hummed. "I'm afraid I must intrude further upon the privacy of what must have been an exceptionally tender moment." He paced once across the room. "What is the substance of this prophecy? What does it say? Does it," he paused to pace one more round, "does it speak of time?"
"Yes," Lily blurted. "It says there isn't much time, and we must never leave each other." She left out the part about the "and" as well as the signs of a baby chosen one on Monty and Effie's star chart. But watching Dumbledore take in the news of what the prophecy had said, she felt that somehow, he knew.
He sat in an armchair below the bird's perch. He seemed to be talking quietly to himself. James and Lily kept quiet, still hand in hand on his settee.
"Tom Riddle is wicked, but he is no fool," Dumbledore went on, louder now. "Though his judgment is shot through with flaws, a rather dangerous one is his too ready reliance on prophecy. He finds his fellow men and women worthless, weak, and discounts their power to choose their destinies for themselves."
He leaned against the back of his chair, closing his eyes. "When Severus makes his report, Tom Riddle will see that there is an emerging pair of soulmates at Hogwarts. There is powerful magic in that. Magic he does not understand but will desire for himself, if only so no one else may have it." He opened his eyes. "Expect his efforts to recruit you to be redoubled. And the next time you defy him, it will not be through Severus Snape."
Lily shifted on the settee. "What do we do then?"
The headmaster gave a great sigh. "You choose. You may choose to do as your prophecy says, and never leave each other, which means," he sighed again, interrupting himself. "Ah, you are so young…"
"Please, sir," James said. "Tell us plainly. What does it mean?"
"Marriage," Dumbledore said. "There's no plainer way to say it. It means sealing your soulbond with marriage."
Lily made a sound between a laugh and a gasp.
"But sir, we're still in school," James said.
"Yes, it would be disruptive and would have to be hidden from your fellow students. And by Muggle law, which we make some efforts not to contravene, it can happen no sooner than Miss Evans's eighteenth birthday. But until it does, you are each particularly vulnerable. Tom Riddle knows it and will move quickly. If you choose marriage, you will be stronger, safer, of more service to the Order should they call on you. And you may also..."
He let his words trail away, standing up instead, lifting a hand to invite James and Lily to rise as well. "I would never ask this of you," he said. "To enter marriage so early - it is too much. You must choose it yourselves, or not. I am only telling you of the choice that lies before you."
Lily swallowed hard. "What if we choose not to ma-marry?"
Dumbledore nodded. "Then you must part to assure Tom Riddle there is no soulbond. Mr. Potter will complete the rest of his year and his preparations for the NEWTs at home, with tutors and the help of his parents. Miss Evans will stay here. You may speak to one another again after Tom Riddle has destroyed himself, however long that takes."
He paused, looking them over as they stood on the rug in his office, hands still clasped, the prophecy orb still visible in James's grip. Oh, they were so lovely.
"And it may take considerably longer for Tom to be destroyed with the pair if you separated, with no chance of you… No, I'm sorry," Dumbledore said. "You have much to think about. Go back to your friends, get some rest. Come to me again once you've decided whether or not to part. I can give you only until the day before Miss Evans's birthday."
They were back in Lily and James's office, all five of them. James and Lily leaned on the front edge of the desk, while the three other lads sat stunned in their chairs.
Sirius launched himself to standing. "You can't," he said. "It's madness. You're seventeen, for stars' sake."
"Yes, it would be mad under normal circumstances," James agreed.
"But we're not in normal circumstances," Peter finished for him.
"Oh, come off it, Pete," Sirius said. "Remus, talk sense to them. They can't let some crazy old man push them into marriage while they're still at school."
"Two crazy old men," Lily added. "There's Mr. Potter pushing for us to either marry or never see each other again too."
"Only old Monty wants a baby out of it, doesn't he?" Sirius raved. "That's what this is about. Not your love, but his heir."
Lily startled. "James, you told them about the grandchild? How could you tell them about that?"
James was stammering toward an answer when Remus spoke up. "It's not his fault, Lily. We kept guessing right and he's terrible at lying to us."
"Well, my parents would hate it - marriage, grandchild, all of it. They made that very clear," Lily said. "Did you tell your mates that too, James Potter? That my mother saw right through you without any magic, looked you in the face and forbade you to get me in a family way?"
James and Lily fell into a whispering spat as Sirius continued to rave. "Is that all you have to say, Remus? Your voice of reason is suddenly struck dumb?"
Remus was finally piqued enough to stand up and face Sirius. "Why is it me you're angry with right now?"
"Because you're doing nothing to stop this."
"What can he do?" Peter added. "What can any of us do?"
"That's it exactly," Remus nearly shouted, taking Sirius by both arms. "We've been over what everyone thinks: Dumbledore, Monty and Effie, the Evanses, even our own feelings about it, Rus. But it's not for any of us to decide. It's up to them, to James and Lily alone."
Sirius twisted out of Remus's hold. "Well that's easy," he sneered. "James told me what he wants already, before any of this talk with Dumbledore. He wants to marry her, and as soon as he can."
Lily's angry whispering cut itself short. "He - what?"
James clenched his eyes closed, groaning and turning in a circle. "Stop making horrible proposals on my behalf and get out of here," he said.
With James pushing from behind, Remus dragging at his jacket from the front, and Peter following behind, they got Sirius out of the office. James locked the door and turned back to find Lily sitting at the desk, her head resting on it, the prophecy orb spinning on the blotter in front of her.
He didn't know what to say. Should he apologize for something? Should he propose, as best he could, right now? There was no way for him to know, not yet. So instead, he said, "Shall we go downstairs for something to eat?"
She breathed a laugh through her nose. "I suppose even doomed soulmates have to eat."
"Doomed?" he said, watching as she pocketed the orb and came toward him.
"Only joking," she said, taking his hand. "It's just odd how instead of being happy for us for finding each other, everyone acts like being soulmates makes us suddenly tragic."
James held her close, his eyes rapt with concern as he stared down at her. "Does all of this make you feel tragic yourself?"
She paused, watching his face as she considered. "No," she said. "It makes me feel - love."
He kissed her, not hotly and hungrily, as he had earlier against the door, but sweetly, with all the devotion he could gather. It was gentle and warm, like a wedding kiss. When he pulled away, her fingers stayed in his hair, soothing him as she combed through the dark, coarse mass.
"How does it make you feel?" she asked.
His answer came quickly. "Like I care nothing for doom. Like all I care about is staying with you, wherever that leads, and however mad it sounds."
He had said it through a smile, squeezing her around the waist and spinning them across the floor of their office, playful enough that she wasn't sure how sincere he could be. But she loved the sound of it all the same.