A/N: I don't own Harry Potter or any related characters

This is for the Hogarts School of Witchcraft and WizardryFantasy Feb -Day Fourteen

Soulmate!AU - BUT - it needs to be one where they have an element that tells them their soulmate. Red string of fate, soulmate name, first words, matching soulmate marks, can't see colours until you meet your soulmate etc etc. You get the idea :D

Assignment #3 Flying Lessons -Task #3: Liftoff and Landing - The students will learn how to kick off from the ground hard and rise a few feet in the air while keeping their brooms steady, and then proceed to come straight back down on the ground by leaning forward slightly. Prompt: Write about the kick off to a new adventure.

Word Count: 1347

Lily blinked, as if trying to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. No, she could see colors. The stag standing in front of her snorted before jumping off and running into the Forbidden Forest. Lily stared at the empty space where it had been standing. There was no way her soulmate could be a stag. She didn't like animals like that!

"At least it's a male deer?" she muttered, shaking her head and walking back towards the castle. Every little thing caught her attention now. Every little flash of color was something new, something exciting.

"Where have you been?" Severus asked.

"Out gathering potions ingredients for my detention, remember? It doesn't matter! I can see colors!"

"You can?! Did it happen when you looked at me?"

"Severus, I've been looking at you almost every day for the last sevenish years. No, it did not. It happened when I was in the Forest. There was this stag and I looked at him, and suddenly there were colors everywhere!"

"That makes no sense, Lily."

"But it's true."

"So you love a stupid deer and not me?"

"I love you as a friend?" Lily offered, giving Severus a smile. He'd been more of a grump than usual lately. She knew the Gryffindors were picking on him again when she wasn't around. She almost wished she'd been sorted into Gryffindor so she could tell the gits to knock it off. But, alas, she was a Ravenclaw and year behind Severus and his tormentors due to a bout of sickness right before she was supposed to start school.

"Right, you keep saying that," Severus muttered, turning to head back to his own dorm. Lily sighed. Severus couldn't see colors yet and she was wondering if he'd ever find his soulmate.

"I still can't have a deer as a soulmate," she muttered, climbing the stairs to Ravenclaw tower and giving the answer to the riddle.

Lily found she was unable to get the deer off her mind. In history of magic, she spent most of her time doodling the deer, every little detail, but mostly his eyes. There was something in his eyes, something different from all the other animals Lily had ever encountered. There was an intelligence there.

"When is a deer not a deer?" she asked, sitting down for lunch.

"Is this some new riddle?" Benjy asked, looking up from his book of muggle mind benders.

"Something like that. I saw this deer and suddenly I could see colors. He's my soulmate, but he's a deer, a stag to be precise and I have no clue what it means."

"I see, so the deer can't be a deer because a deer is an animal you're not like that."

"Exactly!"

"Did you see anyone else in the forest, maybe hiding behind a tree or something?" Benjy suggested.

"No, not that I recall? Maybe there might have been someone," Lily said after a moment.

"See, then you just need to find this mystery person who was hiding in the forest."

"Thanks Benjy, oh, if Severus asks about me... um, don't tell him I'm in the library, alright?"

"Sure?"

"Thanks," Lily said, heading off to the library. She knew it wouldn't tell her who had been in the forest last night, but researching her latest charms essay would. She had a free period until dinner.

"Remus, I'm serious! I can see colors now!" a voice was yelling as Lily entered the library. She sighed. Great, Remus and his friends were here too. She'd never met them, but she knew they were the ones that bullied Severus. Maybe now it was time to give them a piece of her mind. She started in the directions of the voices when she heard four sets of footsteps fleeing the library. They were gone. Oh well, she was kind of annoyed at Severus at the moment anyway. He kept pestering her about going out with him, even though she was saving herself for her soulmate, and she didn't like him like that!

The next day was Saturday. The sun glowed brightly from the sky and Severus had managed to convince Lily to eat lunch with him by the lake.

"And then Mcnair said-" Severus was saying. Lily was only half listening. She hated hearing about Severus' housemates. They disliked her because she wasn't a pure-blood, because she was muggle-born, and for several other reasons she couldn't begin to fathom.

A slight bit of movement caught her attention. There! Over by the Whomping Willow! Was that the stag again? What was he doing out of the forest?

"Lily?"

"Sorry, look, there's the stag again!" she said, pointing. Severus turned and looked.

"I don't see anything other than Potter and his group of tossers," Severus replied. Lily looked again. Severus was right. The stag was gone and instead was a group of four guys laughing loudly about something.

"So they're the ones picking on you? I'm going to go give them a piece of my mind," Lily stated, rising to her feet. Severus reached up to grab her hand and pull her back down, but she was too fast for him.

"Hey! You four!" she yelled, charging at them. Two of them scattered, each running a different direction. The two the remained stared at Lily.

"It's her, Sirius! It's her! It's the girl!" the one wearing glasses yelled to the guy with the long hair and leather jacket.

"The girl from the forest? Come off it, Prongs, it can't be her!"

"I can't be who?" Lily asked, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at them. She could see their other two friends slinking back towards the group.

"I was in the forest, serving detention, and there was this girl and I thought I was dreaming because suddenly the world filled with color. Then she was gone, the only thing I remembered was her having red hair," the boy explained. Lily touched her own hair, only knowing it's color since the night she'd met the stag.

"But I didn't see you," she whispered, thinking about Benjy's comment that there must have been someone else in the forest.

"You won't have realized it was him, because he was in disguise."

"Shut up, Padfoot!"

"Wait," Lily whispered, walking closer until she was staring him in the eyes. The same eyes she'd drawn over and over, the same little bit of light in the centers. Her mouth fell open as her mind started piecing things together.

"You're the stag," she whispered. "When is a deer not a deer, when he's an..." she paused searching for the word.

"Animagus," someone answered. "I'm Remus, that idiot is Sirius and the nutjob you're in love with because of being soulmates is James."

"Lily," Lily replied, wondering how hard it would be to become an animagus and if she would be a doe to match James' stag.

"Now that we all know who we are, what brings you over here?"

"I came over here to ask you to leave my friend, Severus, alone. I know you've been bullying him."

"I think we could do that, for you," James said after a moment. Sirius and Remus nodded. James was their leader after all, and if his soulmate said to stop, well there were plenty of other Slytherin gits to pick on.

"Good, now, um, about this soulmate thing, I guess, we should get to know each other?" Lily suggested.

"I know just the place, have you ever been to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade? They say it's haunted," James said, putting an arm around Lily's shoulder.

"Is it really?" she asked, curious.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I know a secret passage that leads straight to it, want to see?" he asked, giving Lily a large smile. She smiled back and nodded.

"Alright, let's see it then," she answered, her mind still on whether or not she'd be a doe if she could be an animagus, and what it would be like to run through the forest on four long legs beside James.