"Come along, Jimsy," Euphemia Potter called down to her son from the top of the cellar stairs. "Bring the sweetheart with you. We've an awful lot to talk about."

She waited until James and Lily started up the stairs, James's hand pressed discreetly to the small of Lily's back, before she turned and led them not toward the dining room where the rest of their friends had been instructed to start dinner without them, but farther along the south wing of the manor, to Fleamont Potter's study.

"Monty, dear," Effie called as she let all of them inside. "I've brought them. Wake up, now."

Fleamont coughed himself awake. "Ah yes, Jimsy and the sweetheart."

"Lily, Dad," James corrected him, blushing and ducking his head, but taking Lily's hand all the same.

"Yes. Yes, come as close to the desk as you can. Mother and I have something to show you." There was a rustling of parchment as Fleamont fought to unroll the large scroll. The struggle might have been an awkward sight, even sad, if he hadn't suddenly swiped his hands sharply in opposite directions, forcing the scroll to open and flatten magically, perfectly.

The scroll was a star chart - a massive one, finely and lovingly made, its figures in constant motion, not unlike James's map of Hogwarts. At the head of the paper, as a title, were three words: James Euphemius Potter.

"What no one remembers anymore, is that your father and I met while working as diviners," Effie began. "It was a first career for both of us, and we each quit it on the very same day too. The study of divination was what brought us together, Jimsy. That and a shared bottle of mead in a remote observatory in Peru. We sat in starlight and drew a chart of the life we could have together, agreed that it was more than satisfactory to both of us, and that was that. Not the grandest of love stories, but here we are."

Fleamont sputtered. "Why, it's the grandest love story of them all. Our lives were mapped out with precision, right before our eyes, and we chose each other anyway. You were there on the chart too, Jimsy. We saw that you'd be coming to us late in life, and without any brothers or sisters. It would be hard to wait, sad for you to be raised by such old, feeble people, all alone. But the rest of what was on the chart made it worthwhile. That and the smiles of this woman, plying me with mead on a mountaintop..." He trailed into a warm chuckle.

Effie patted her husband's hand where it lay on the desk. It was sweet, moving enough that James and Lily listened closely, not yet trying to read the star chart in front of them, the one Effie and Monty had drawn much later, here in the West Country, for their long awaited only son.

Monty covered Effie's hand with his own. "Now to your chart, Jimsy. This one. Love and family came late for your parents, but so early for you. We knew it would, but this - this is far earlier than we expected - "

"But Dad, Lily and I have only just - "

"The seven years," Monty crowed over James's protest, as if making an announcement. "We thought the seven years you'd spend in an unrequited love would begin at about the age your are now. Perhaps later, after school. But you were always such a bright boy, precocious, advanced in your development. And true to that, you went and began your seven-year unrequited love much, much younger than expected." He ended with a small, somehow pained smile, no chuckle. "We always thought," Monty paused, clearing his throat as if his voice was failing, "we always hoped there would be more time."

Lily's hand tightened around James's. Time - not much time, just like in the prophecy sealed in glass in the pocket of her cardigan.

James jumped in his seat. "What time, Dad? Time for what? What does this mean?"

But Monty had fallen silent again, as if exhausted. Effie took up the story. "We drew Jimsy's chart right here in this study, as soon as I could get out of bed after his birth. His is an auspicious horoscope indeed. And he has grown up according to it in nearly every way. The cleverness, the mischief, his health and athleticism."

She took up a quill and pointed at the chart. "Look here, by Orion, there is this little reindeer, coinciding with Jimsy learning an extraordinary magical skill he doesn't believe we know about. And here was where he had his brush with Pluto, and fell from a broom in a match to break his leg. And then of course," she said, waving a hand over the cluster of stars around his, "we see those lovely lads, racing through the cosmos with our JImsy in place of the brothers we couldn't provide. The four of them together, for now..."

"The twin star," Monty blurted, his voice rising again. "That was what was most striking about our Jimsy's chart. A second star. By it, we could tell he would be a man with a soulmate - "

There it was on the chart, a star the same size and brightness as James's central one, orbiting his, orbited by his.

"Now, the mere existence of a soulmate is not altogether uncommon," Effie was quick to interject as she saw Lily's face flushing. "Many people have a born soulmate. But that isn't nearly enough. It always takes some making. The world is so large and full now, few soulmates ever meet. And of those who do, many never know it - not strongly enough to act on it. You see, dears, in the end, all soulmates are made. All soulmates choose one another."

In Effie's pause, James and Lily didn't dare look at each other, but he continued to hold tightly to her hand.

"And they can be unmade," Effie went on. "There's no need to be alarmed, sweetheart. All the choices in the cosmos are still yours. You see the chart moving. It is always moving, against our will, yes, but sometimes according to our will."

"Seven years," Monty called out again.

"Yes, the chart says Jimsy will meet his soulmate but he will be refused. He will then strive for seven years in unrequited love before she accepts him. And those seven years have ended today, here in this house," Effie said. "You needn't blush to hear we already know it, Jimsy. The house has been in your father's family for almost a thousand years. Nothing happens here without the house bringing him a sense of it. And for some days now..."

"You've been spying on us?" James was sputtering. "Not just this Christmas holiday, but for my entire life, my father's been spying on me?"

"Serves you right," Lily muttered beside him.

"A sense, Jimsy," Effie said. "Dad only gets a sense, not an explanation, not a vision."

Monty was interrupting. "Enough. The child. Tell them about the child."

"I'm getting to it, Monty dear," she said. "But first, there is something that needs to be said of having, then finding, then accepting a soulmate. In most lives, the greatest pain comes from disappointment and betrayal, large and small, in intimate relationships meant to be lifelong. Soulmates lack much of this." She paused, resting both of her hands on the chart, her fingers splayed over its stars and comets. "In return for this uncommon happiness and harmony, soulmates owe the cosmos a debt."

"A child," Monty insisted, louder than ever.

"Not always a child," Effie said. "But they owe a service, an offering. And for Jimsy, yes, the stars say that will be a child."

Lily moved to pull her hand out of James's. He gripped it tighter but his skin was wet with sweat and she slid away. "Excuse me, Madam Potter," she said, "I do like James but I'm still in school. It's nothing personal, but I've certainly no intention - "

"No, of course you don't, sweetheart," Effie said. "The intention will come at the right time, if you stay with our Jimsy. If you leave him, the intention will never come. The child will never come. And then…"

Effie left the rest unspoken.

But Monty would not. "Great chaos and danger is upon our world," he said. "A child will end it. Our child. The child of James and his soulmate. Read it here in the stars - "

"Stop it, Dad," James was saying. "Mum, how can you let him go on like this? What's he even saying? That we're running out of time to make Lily into a pregnant schoolgirl, the mother of some Chosen One grandbaby Dad's been waiting for my whole life?"

"Now, there's no need to blurt it out like that," Effie said.

"But that is what the pair of you are trying to say, isn't it?" he demanded. "You don't deny it?"

"You needn't worry about any of it, Jimsy," Effie said, rising to take his hands. "But in choosing whether to accept your soulmate or not, we thought you should know that a gift like this doesn't come for free. If you keep your sweetheart, there will be a price to pay. A price of trouble and sorrow and - and loss."

For the first time in his life, James yanked his hands out of his mother's grip. "Accept her? Me accept Lily Evans? There isn't any question there. And I won't manipulate her with some story about babies who need to save the world. She can do as she likes, but as for me - as if I could choose anything but to beg Lily to accept me - "

"Soulmate talk," Effie said, her back turned to James as she returned to Fleamont's side of the desk. "There's nothing for it, Monty. He's already chosen. Go have your tea, James, while I deal with your father."

Monty slumped behind his desk, quiet, hunched lower than usual, his shoulders trembling, breath noisy. He looked delicate, beaten.

All at once, James was afraid for him. "Dad?" he called as Effie waved him and Lily out of the room a second time. "You're not - "

"Our boy," Monty rasped. "So little time for our boy."

Effie's magic surged against them and Lily and James were swept like sails on a windy lake across the smooth wooden floor and out of the study. For a moment, they stood speechless before the closed door.

"Come on," James said, taking Lily's arm, moving at a brisk walk away from the study, toward the central hall. "Don't listen to any of that. Diviners? Almost eighteen years as their son and never in that time do they mention working in divination, or of having my destiny written on a map stashed in Dad's desk. It's ridiculous. It's - "

"It's James and Evans!" Sirius was calling to them, stepping out of the dining room with Peter and Remus. "We were just coming to let you out of the cellar, before dinner was over."

"Thanks," James said, dropping his hand from Lily's arm. "But Mum already came to fetch us. We were just - "

"How was your one-to-one chat?" Peter asked, his elbow poking at James's ribs. "Get everything sorted?"

Remus leaned back on his heels, regarding James and Lily with narrowed eyes. "Yes. Is everything alright?"

James flinched, as if bracing for a blow, his head down, hands clenched into fists, swallowing but not speaking. Everyone heard him gasp as Lily wound an arm around his waist and leaned her head against his bicep.

"Everything's not alright," she said. "But James and I are together now."

There was a roar of congratulations as the lads rushed forward to hug James, separating him from Lily as they pounded on his back and punched at his sides, laughing and cheering. He couldn't help but grin in return.

"Nothing like a good snog alone in the dark, eh James?" Sirius said.

"For stars' sake, be a gentleman," James groaned.

"Well, whatever happened down there, you've still got to eat," Peter was saying, towing James by the wrist toward the dining room.

Remus was finally laughing along, pushing James after Peter by the backs of his shoulders. "Yes, listen to your inner rat, and follow your outer rat to dinner."

In the dining room, Peter made a great show of pulling out a chair to seat Lily, and instead of returning to his seat, Sirius strolled to Fleamont Potter's massive cabinet of liquors.

"This is truly a momentous occasion, one our entire school career in the making," he said. "We simply must toast it." He plucked a bottle of port, almost at random from the cabinet, holding it up for James's inspection. "What do you say, Master Potter?"

James was angry at his parents, embarrassed by them, and also curious, wanting to test the "sense" his father had for what happened in the house. From across the dining room, he smirked at Sirius. "We're all of age. It's Christmas. I don't see why not."

Between the five of them, no one had very much to drink, just enough to make young, inexperienced people loud and silly.

Lily held a hand over the top of James's glass to keep Sirius from refilling it. "Not for you, James," she said. "You know you're going to want to walk me to my room later on and I don't want you any sloppier or more bothersome than usual."

At the moment, this seemed hilarious to the lads. "So begins the domestication of the once wild and free Prongs," Sirius laughed.

"Yes, well you should all be so lucky," James said.

They couldn't spend all night in the dining room, and it wouldn't do for the senior Potters to meet them smelling of port in the drawing room, so they spent the rest of the evening in James's rooms, lounging in front of the fire. The boys grew quiet again, playing at cards while Lily laid her head against James's arm and drifted off to sleep.

Sirius noticed and hissed for James's attention. "If she's out for the night, drop her in her room, mate," he whispered. "Then come back and give us the whole story of what went on down in the cellar."

James looked at the mass of red hair slumped against his arm, rising and falling with Lily's deep, sleepy breaths. She was warm and soft and lovely and Sirius had just given him a perfectly reasonable excuse to be alone with her again for the first time since the cellar when…

"Right."

He was turning on the sofa beside her, sliding his arm behind her, preparing to pick her up when Lily startled awake. Disappointed, he sat back. "You've been asleep for nearly an hour," he said. "I was about to carry you to bed."

She punched at his arm, still blinking the sleepiness from her eyes. "Don't be daft, Potter. I can walk."

In the corridor, James pushed Lily's bedroom door open and stepped inside with her. "You're not drunk, are you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, just overwhelmed. Who knew prophecy was so exhausting? I feel like I've had a seizure. I need to rest."

Visibly disappointed, James hung his head. It was her last night in the manor, her first night as his girl, and she had the proverbial romance squelching headache. He let out a long breath. "Alright then."

"James," she said before he could turn to leave. "That doesn't mean I don't want to bid you a proper goodnight."

"It doesn't?"

Lily clenched one fist in the front of James's jumper and pulled him to her. "Of course it doesn't. And stop acting so insecure. That's not like you. If I didn't appreciate a man with a little too much self-confidence about him, I wouldn't be here with you, would I?"

James's arms closed around her. "I suppose not," he said. "It's just that my parents made it all so serious and ominous. I wouldn't blame you if you decided being with me was too much trouble and - "

Lily's hands were braced on either side of his face. "It's not too much trouble. I am not scared off. According to your parents, at this moment I am in the arms of my soulmate. I don't know if I trust them on that, but I'm happy to hear it all the same. So if you think I might belong to you on some miraculous, cosmic level, then try acting like it."

This was much more encouragement than James needed, and Lily yelped as he dropped the both of them onto her bed, rolling on top of her and grinning into her face.

"What in the stars are you doing?" she demanded through a laugh.

"I'm being a considerate host. Making sure you go to bed so you're fresh for reuniting with your family tomorrow," he said, bending to pepper kisses on her face. "Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?"

"Fresh? Comfortable? James Euphemius Potter, how can you - "

His trail of kisses had arrived at her mouth before she could finish scolding him. All her playful pretenses crumbled, her words ending in a sigh as their mouths met again.

Being with James was different than being with the two other boys she'd kissed. There was something profound to it even when they were silly. It was different physically as well as emotionally. The sensations of their kisses were finer, more deeply felt - the warmth and texture, the movement and friction of his lips and, yes, his tongue moving over hers.

"James," she said, turning her mouth away from his. She meant for it to slow them down but all it did was bare her neck to him. Completely undeterred, he had happily set about kissing his way down her throat toward her collarbone. Before she could stop herself she moaned in frustrated appreciation, fighting for more breath to say, "James, your father."

She heard and felt the break of the light suction between James's mouth and the pulse point at the base of her neck. "What?"

"Old Monty has a sense of everything that happens in this house," she said, her hands on his face again, drawing his eyes to hers. "You don't think your dad knows that you're in here, bidding me a very improper goodnight, sucking at my neck, and lying on top of me as if I can't tell you've got an - "

"Alright," he said, rolling away. "Sorry."

She eased onto her side, looking at his profile as he lay next to her. She traced his eyebrows, cheekbones, his nose, the curves of his lips and chin, the line of his throat to where his Adam's apple bobbed. His chest rose and fell forcefully enough for her to watch as his heart rate became less frantic.

"It's strange," he said. "It's not like being with other girls. With us, everything I do to be close to you feels so normal. Like I already know all of you, and barriers between us don't make sense." He turned to face her, folding his legs, his knees between them now. "But they do make sense. This is new and special, and I don't want to be so excited I trample all over it."

She propped herself on one elbow. "Other girls," she repeated. "Was it ever serious?"

He shook his head. "No."

"James Potter," she purred. "Are you saying you're a virgin?"

He breathed a laugh through his nose, straightening his legs and inching closer. "Am I? Well, that depends entirely on you."

She covered his mouth with her hand as his face hovered in front of hers. "You will certainly stay a virgin as long as your father is 'sensing' anything. That's for sure. Now slink back to your mates and satisfy their sick curiosity about us. But don't say anything about soulmates, or prophecies, or -."

"Right," James said. "Nothing too special. So here's your proper goodnight." His head crossed the space between them where they lay facing each other on the bed, and he kissed her sweetly on the mouth. It would have been perfectly proper if she hadn't immediately, fervently kissed him back. He tugged her close as she lunged toward him, and through their combined momentum, James came to be lying on his back with Lily on top of him.

As soon as she noticed their new position, she withdrew from his mouth, but let him hold her waist, keeping her where she was. "Are you a virgin, Lily?" he asked, a note of dread in his voice.

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Yes, for now."

He raised a hand to her cheek, his thumb stroking her smooth, sweet skin. "Good. And goodnight, sweetheart."

James opened his bedroom door to find the room dead quiet. The fire was low and Peter snoozed under a knitted afghan in the centre of the bed, more like a cat than a rat.

On the sofa where James and Lily had been, Remus lay languidly petting the neck and shoulders of a large black dog stretched out alongside him, its great shaggy head on his chest. Being without family so young was harder than Sirius would usually let on. When he was melancholy, he would get a fix for physical human contact by becoming inhuman and coming to Remus like this. Remus needed it too. He didn't trust himself to have a lover for fear of tearing them apart. But a smart pet that could protect itself was more than alright, especially if it was Sirius.

James paused to stare wistfully at them. Why did his animagus form have to something as completely uncuddly as a stag? If he was a dog, or even a rat, he could lay in bed with Lily while she stroked his fur until they fell peacefully, chastely to sleep. With those long, bony legs and a head full of antlers, no matter how velvety, Prongs couldn't even get through her bedroom door.

Remus finally noticed James's return and raked his fingers through Sirius's hair to wake him. As the dog shook its head and sat up, it was no longer a dog but a boy with a slight headache.

"I definitely smell her saliva on you," Sirius said, pulling James onto the sofa beside them.

James cringed. "Is there some other way you could say that?"

"So you're together," Remus redirected them. "Brilliant."

"Nothing beats the romantic setting of a cold, dark cellar," Peter said, crossing the floor, still wrapped in the afghan, falling into the armchair.

"No, it must have come down to a mature, honest discussion of a long-held, complicated feelings," Remus insisted.

"Pete's right, actually," James smirked. "We spent our time practicing Patronuses. Hers is a doe. That was it."

There was a wave of low laughter.

"Snogging by the light of your paired Patronuses. That's intense, James," Sirius said. "That's soulmate stuff."

James jumped. "Er - not necessarily."

"Look at him," Peter said, pointing at James's face. "I can see his pulse in his forehead. We've caught him. Old Prongs has got a soulmate."

"I never said that," James sputtered.

"Then deny it," Sirius said, shoving hard at James's shoulder. "As your oldest friend, I demand you look me in the eye and swear to me you have no soulmate."

James tried to square his shoulders and say the words Sirius demanded of him. But it was no use. He couldn't keep the lads, the cluster of stars from his chart, out of a secret this monumental. Instead of answering, he slumped against the sofa's back and covered both his eyes with his hands.

There was more laughter and congratulations. But he couldn't bear it. "Stop. Having a soulmate - it's not like that. My parents know about it and they think we have to repay the universe for the privilege by starting a family right away."

Sirius gagged. "A family? What, with kids and all?"

"Yes," James nearly shouted.

"No, that's - "

Remus cut in. "They must have a reason. No one wants their kids to be parents in school," he reasoned.

James groaned. "Reason's got nothing to do with it. They're on about some horoscope they drew up for me when I was a baby."

Peter grimaced. "Astronomical divination? They can't be serious."

"They are," James groaned again. "Old and pitiful and - I don't know - desperate to see a grandbaby before Dad dies. Who knows, really. Frankly, I'm relieved Lily didn't disapparate in disgust, right out of Dad's study and back to Cokeworth when they told her all this."

Sirius leaned into him, sniffing hard, picking up Lily's scent on him again. "No, smells like she wasn't disgusted at all."

The fretfulness on James's face slipped into a lovestruck grin. "We did have a rather nice goodnight just now. It's - I can't explain it. It's just kissing but then it's - not just that. I feel like - I have no words for it."

Sirius swore. "Mr. Soulmate is going to be insufferable from now on."

"But she's definitely going back to Cokeworth in the morning. Awful to think about. I'll probably run mad before school starts again." He swore at himself. "You're right, Sirius. I sound like a nutter."

"Probably for the best she goes," Remus said. "Let it cool off a bit and meet again at school, where things are more realistic, in their way. Let the whole grandbaby spectre fade away."

James nodded. "Mum says if we stay together, we'll definitely have the baby in no time. The only way we can avoid it is to split up."

"No one's telling you to never give them the grandchild," Remus said. "Just put it off for a few years - "

"Like all sane couples do, for stars sake," Sirius finished.

"Thanks, mates," James said, standing up. "But you lot are going to have to find somewhere else to do your interspecies snuggling. I've got to get some rest. I may be meeting the Evans family tomorrow and don't want to look like I've been up all night bragging about my soulmate."

The lads rose, clapping him on the shoulder as they filed by him. James felt odd, conflicted. He had managed to respect Lily's privacy and not to tell them about the prophecy, or about this baby of theirs saving the world, or any of that craziness. Maybe later the lads would guess at all of his secrets, as they always did, as they had tonight. But secrets like these - how could anyone possibly guess?