QUIDDITCH LEAGUE FANFICTION COMPETITION
Montrose Magpies, Keeper (Reserve)
KEEPER: An arrow on your wrist points you in the direction of your soulmate, like a compass.
Also written for some other stuff.
AU!LILY AND JAMES ARE ONLY FRIENDS (AT THE START)
Also making a note here - Voldemort is not mentioned in the non-italic parts, but he's still alive and kicking then. Just to clarify.
Nightmares and Soulmate Compasses
"What's that?" Alice said suddenly.
"What's what?" Lily said, furrowing her eyebrows.
"That sound. Can't you hear it?" she looked at Lily, then at Frank. "Like...cackling. Evil cackling. Like a madwoman's laugh."
Lily shifted, slightly unsettled by Alice's description of the sound. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"Very sure." Alice cupped her own ear with her hand. Her compass was on display on her wrist, pointing right, which was where Frank was. It made Lily a little wistful - even though her compass was constantly moving around and attempting to tell her where her soulmate was, she still hadn't found them. But she had plenty of time, she reasoned to herself. She was only twenty, after all, and people usually found their soulmates when they were about twenty-seven.
"I can definitely hear it," Alice murmured, breaking Lily out of her thoughts.
Lily listened intently, but all she heard was soup sloshing in a pot and air rushing by. "Nothing," she said, just as the sound of shattering wood reached her ears.
"What was that?" Frank asked, drawing his wand. Lily copied him.
"Let's go find out," said Alice, already standing up and heading to where the sound seemed to be coming from - the living room.
She didn't need to. Before she had taken two steps, the door to the kitchen burst open. A shiver went down Lily's spine when she saw who it was.
Bellatrix Black Lestrange sashayed in, her wand in hand. Her husband, Rodolphus Lestrange, brother-in-law, Rabastan Lestrange, and fellow Death Eater, Barty Crouch Jr., followed.
Lily tried to get her blood to liquefy again, but she couldn't. She couldn't move. She felt her wand jump out of her hand and clatter on the table.
"Oh, look," Bellatrix said, as if she'd just spotted them. "An ickle Mudblood, and two blood traitors!" She threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, how wonderful!"
"You - you insane madwoman," Alice spat. She charged forwards fearlessly and glared at Bellatrix. "How dare you barge into our home like that!"
Bellatrix carelessly waved her wand at Alice, who froze like Lily. She did the same to Frank, and Lily realised that now, all of them were Petrified and unable to move. Great.
"I was thinking that we should have a little bit of fun with them," said Bellatrix, and if she could, Lily would have shivered. "Yes, that sounds good. Should we start with the Mudblood?" Without waiting for her comrades' reply, she aimed her wand at Lily. "Crucio!"
Then it was just pain.
Since Lily couldn't move, she couldn't scream or writhe. She had to suffer in silence, the agony climbing up her body until she was consumed by it -
Ah, this is what pain feels like, she thought, right before she passed out right there in the Longbottoms' kitchen.
"Lily. Lily? Lily!" a voice was saying her name, over and over again.
Lily wondered why Bellatrix was calling her by name. The madwoman quite obviously preferred 'Mudblood'. Then she realised that it was not Bellatrix.
She prised her eyes open, rubbing the rheum out of her eyes. She blinked at seeing James's face above her.
"Where's Remus?" she asked. Remus Lupin was usually the one to calm her down after her nightmares, as she was most comfortable with him. When he had her breathing steadily again, they would talk about a book and bet on who could read the most books in a day. Lily had settled into the routine, so it was a surprise to see James.
"It's the full moon, remember?"
"Oh...yeah."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Lily shifted a little under her blankets.
"Oh, um, your soulmate compass is pointing to the right." Lily said, trying to start a conversation.
"Wha - Oh." James glanced at it. "Maybe it means that my soulmate lives on Mars. Maybe they're an alien."
That was the most ridiculous thing that Lily had ever heard, and she laughed. She removed her arm from her blankets and showed him her own soulmate compass. "Look - mine is pointing left. If I follow your logic, it means that my soulmate is on Venus or Mercury."
James guffawed, then said, "Well, it's time for breakfast, Lily. Wakey wakey. Sirius is preparing pancakes, and you know those are to die for."
"The Daily Prophet's reported something new from the Department of Mysteries," Sirius said as he flipped a pancake.
"Oh?" Lily asked. Anything involving the Department of Mysteries was usually interesting. She had once considered applying to be an Unspeakable, but she'd decided that it was too dangerous.
"Yeah, they say that when soulmates kiss, the soulmate compasses will light up and spin around crazily."
"Oh...cool." Lily said, not very interested now.
"Pretty useful, apparently," Sirius said, noticing Lily's dubious look. "Some witch claimed that she kissed her soulmate by accident and her compass started spinning like crazy."
"Probably some Ministry hag who's been paid to say that."
"Oh...yeah," Sirius agreed, as he tipped a pancake onto Lily's plate.
Lily hummed as she walked out of the library (yes, library - when she'd initially seen it, she couldn't believe her eyes), carrying a stack of books under her arm. She did this every day, as they - they meaning all the Marauders and her - were stuck inside Potter Manor all day and had nearly nothing to do.
She took the first and thickest book out and started reading, not watching where she was going. She knew the paths and hallways of Potter Manor very well by now, and the Marauders usually retired back to their bedrooms after breakfast.
So she was startled when she bumped into something hard - no, someone.
"Lily!" James's voice said. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you."
"It's okay," Lily said, noting the parchment he was carrying. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
"Here, let me pick these up for you -" James leant down, at the exact same time that Lily did.
It was brief, brief but thrilling.
Their lips met for a moment.
Lily was in bliss: everything except that kiss didn't matter, she was floating, she was -
Then they broke apart.
Lily felt like a piece of her heart was shattering. Embarrassed, she picked up her books again, and caught a glimpse of her wrist.
Her compass was glowing a bright, pretty shade of gold, spinning like never before. Lily got dizzy just from watching it.
She realised what her glowing and spinning compass symbolized -
She and James were soulmates.
WC: 1079 (Google Docs)
