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There were two things that made Lily Evans unlike most other children. The first is that she is a witch, but she didn’t learn that until her eleventh birthday. The second, is that she had a strange birthmark on her left ribcage, it was shaped like a lightning bolt and it was about the size of her pinky. And for many years, it was just a strange birthmark. Then she met Severus and it became something else entirely.
“Do all wizards and witches have it?” she asks, “Do we all have the same one?”
“All magical people have one but we don’t have the same one,” he tells her the summer after her letter came, stretching out on the glass beside her, “Only your soulmate has it.”
“My soulmate,” she repeats in awe. For a minute, they are both quiet then she says, “Will you tell me more about Hogwarts?”
He nods and begins to speak about a world full of magic and ghosts and strange jelly beans that tasted like grass and earwax.
Lily lays against the grass next to him, she is intrigued by her mark, how could she not be? But at eleven years old, she is contend to just listening about the world she would be entering in come September.
*
For a while, she doesn’t even think about them. The marks are mentioned in class but no one seems to care, maybe it’s because they’re so young. But when she’s thirteen, the girls in her year start caring.
“Mine’s a raccoon,” Marlene tells them all one night as she pushes up her sleeve to revel a small raccoon on the inside of her right wrist. Alice’s is an oak leaf on her collarbone, and Dorcas’s is a small raindrop on her index finger.
Lily pulls up her night shirt to show her lightning bolt, “I’m luckier than all of you, mine’s hidden.” She’s nervous, she’s never shown it to somebody since finding out what it meant.
“You’ve never shown it to anyone, have you?” Alice says knowingly.
“Not since learning what it means,” she says, pulling down her shirt, “No one’s ever asked me.”
“Not even Snape?” Alice asks, shocked.
“Nope, not even him,” Lily says as she leans back against her pillows. As the conversation shifts to whatever idiotic thing Potter and his friends did that day in class, Lily remembered the time she saw Severus’ mark. She had only seen it once, when his mother cut his hair too short and the small cross behind his ear was visible for a few months over the summer. It’s probably why he kept his hair longer, to try and hide it. She had asked him about it, and somehow she let it slip that hers was on her ribcage, and the look on Severus’ face was heartbroken. Lily tries not to remember that fact, and since then, they’ve never talked about their marks.
*
It becomes a game for the girls, learning about other people’s marks. Marlene keeps a small notebook with all the ones they’ve found out. At the end of third year, they learn that Gideon Prewett has a small fox on his ankle and his brother’s Fabian has a rose on his right arm, just above his elbow.
In fourth year, Lily sees Peter Pettigrew’s mark, a thin squiggly line that goes up his arm and down his back. Dorcas sees Benjy Fenwick’s, an dog on the center of his back.
Marlene spends all of fourth year trying to get Sirius Black to show her his. She constantly harasses him throughout all their classes and through every meal. Finally, a week before the Easter holidays at breakfast, Sirius had enough of her harassment, he stood up and pulled down his trousers to revel a crown on his left thigh. McGonagall gave him dentation for a week for pulling his trousers down in the Great hall. And Lily saw looks of disappointment on most girls faces throughout the rest of the day. And in the moment, she could have sworn that Marlene’s face was also disappointed.
Fifth year was the year Alice saw Frank’s matching oak leaf on his collarbone and suddenly everything felt different. Dorcas stopped looking and so did Marlene.
“It feels wrong,” Marlene once says to her, “Too personal, like maybe only your soulmate is supposed to see it.” Lily watches as Marlene’s fingers went to her wrist and traces the raccoon. The four girls stop talking about the marks and all three of them watch Frank and Alice be so beautifully sickeningly in love with each other. And every time Lily undresses, she traces the little lightning bolt and wonders.
*
The next one she sees in Remus Lupin’s by accident. It’s two weeks before her birthday, and she and Remus are on patrol.
“These damn shoes,” he complains as they stop on the stairs and he takes off his shoes to rub his feet, “Too bloody small, Mum’s sending new ones but they won’t be here until next week.”
Lily winched in sympathy, his sock slips down and she sees a small collection of stars on his right foot.
He must see her looking because he quickly pulls up his sock and puts his shoes back on.
“Oh, Remus, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be looking,” she says apologetically, “It’s private, I know but I was just curious. “
Remus shrugs, “It’s fine, Lily, really.” But he’s walking stiffly and his words were curt.
So she does something possibly very stupid, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. She pulls her shirt out of her skirt and yanks it up to revel the lightning bolt on her ribcage. He looks at her mark, then at her face, his eyes wide.
“There, now you’ve seen mine,” she says as pulls her shirt back down.
Remus nods and they start walking again.
“How many people know what your mark is?” he asks, his face still shocked.
“Just Marlene, Dorcas, and Alice,” she tells him, “And now you, I guess.”
And they are both silent for the rest of their patrol.
(In hindsight, she should have known, she really should have.)
*
James Potter has taken to staring at her, she notices in March. Every time she looks up, his eyes are on her and it makes her feel weird.
“He likes you,” Marlene tells her one day as they walk to Charms, “I heard he was going to ask you to Hogsmeade.”
Lily isn’t quite sure how she feels about it, Potter can be such a prat sometimes but then he can funny and kind other times.
Severus hates him, he doesn’t hide it. And Potter hates him as well. They both hex each whenever they think they can get away with it. Lily stays out of it, Severus is her best friend and she hates how Potter treats him and how he hexes people for the fun of it, but Severus isn’t completely blameless in their fights.
After the incident at the lake, Lily doesn’t speak to either Severus or Potter. It’s a week before summer holidays when she sees it.
Potter and the rest of his mates are swimming in the lake. Lily doesn’t even notice them as she walks back to the castle from Hagrid’s house. She looks up when she hears a yell and sees Sirius tackle Potter into the water. Both of them go underwater for a minute before popping up, laughing. She pauses, and watches as the four of them laugh. And she is close enough to them that she can make out the mark on Potter’s chest, on the left side on his ribcage, it’s deadly familiar to her and for a moment she can’t breathe.
Because it’s her mark, her lightning bolt that’s on James Potter’s body. And part of her wants to run, to forget she ever saw it. And another part of her wants to walk right up to him and pull up her shirt to compare the two marks.
In the end, she did neither. She watches Potter for another minute before walking calmly up to the castle to begin her packing for home.
*
The summer before sixth year, she spends it thinking. She thinks about her friendship with Severus, her grades, what she wants to do when she graduates, Petunia’s upcoming wedding, and James Potter.
She almost writes him, but thinks better of it. She does, however, write Remus to ask him one question, “Did you know?”
He responded a week later with a simple answer, “Yes.”
And that’s all she really needed to know.
*
The first half of her sixth year passed without incident. Then the strangest thing happened.
She finds herself becoming friends with James Potter.
At first, it’s only because they were partners in Transfiguration. But slowly, they start studying together and he and his friends join her and her friends at Hogsmeade. And then they are eating almost every meal together and they’re together more often than not.
And she likes him, quite possibly more than a friend. She likes his laugh and his crooked smile. And his stupid messy hair and how his glasses slide down his nose. More than once, she thinks about asking him about his mark but she can’t make the words form to ask him. Remus looks at her knowingly, and maybe in curiosity, he knows she knows. But he never questions her about it. And for that, she is grateful for.
And at the end of sixth year, when they reach King’s Cross, James pulls her into a tight hug and makes her promise that she would write. And the words could have slipped out so easily but her parents are behind her and she can see Sirius out of the corner of her eye and the time just isn’t right.
Soon, she thinks as she kisses his cheek in farewell, soon.
*
Summer comes and goes and she’s head girl and James is head boy. And then they’re together on the train again.
“I missed you terribly this summer,” he tells her after the perfect meeting.
She grins at that and says, “Me too.”
Which made him grin at her and then they’re both standing there, grinning at each other like idiots until Marlene comes running in the compartment and pulling her away to discuss how Frank proposed to Alice over the summer.
And she glances behind her shoulder to see James still smiling at her even as Marlene pulls her farther away.
*
Sometimes, she thinks she doesn’t even have to tell him. That he just knows, somehow, he knows. Or maybe it didn’t matter and that even without knowing his mark matched hers she would still be so in love with him.
(She doesn’t think a world could exist with her not being in love with James, it doesn’t seem to be possible.)
*
He kisses her a month before Christmas. And she’s so surprised that she doesn’t kiss him back.
They were sitting in the Heads office, talking about perfect schedules and she looks up to ask him a question and his lips are on hers.
He pulls back after she doesn’t respond. He starts to apologize but she leans forward and kisses him. And it’s better than anything she could have imagined.
And they kiss and kiss until they both can’t breathe and when they finally pull apart, they’re both quiet for a minute but then they both start laughing and then they’re kissing and laughing and it's so wonderful and she's quite sure she's never been this happy before.
*
One day, they’ll talk about it. One day, they’ll talk about how they really feel about their marks and if they really believe in the soulmates part of it.
He’ll say he didn’t believe in it, still doesn’t believe in it, he believes in her and in them and in the love that they know they feel instead of the marks on their skin.
She likes to believe that no matter what, they would have found each other. That somehow, something connects them and they would always find each other and love each. She thinks that’s what being soulmates is, finding each other and loving each other no matter what.
(She’s always been a believer in magic, it only makes sense that she’ll believe in love too.)