Soulmate Prophecy - Marauders

Chapter 9

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.