Soulmates by Design

SI Waters

First off, big shout out to Bob The Other Zombie for being as kind as to letting me use their base idea for this story. If you haven't read "The Art of Misdirection" by them, you are missing out! Please go read. It is one of the best James/Lily stories I have read in a while and I'm so glad to have been able to find it. Wanted to let you know, I was not the one to come up with the base idea, credit to—again—Bob The Other Zombie. You can find a link to their profile and the story on my profile. I wanted to try my hand at the idea, different plot line, but same general idea. The use of tattoo's to discover your soulmate.

As for other reading information: This story is completely finished and I will be updating it every Saturday. There are 18 chapters in total.

Chapter 1: The Ritual

It was their first week at Hogwarts, they had come to the weekend and on Saturday the first years were brought to the Great Hall. Several wizards stood waiting for them in front of several odd stations. Lily thought she recognized them from one of the darker shops in Cokeworth that her mother always ushered her and Petunia past.

"Sev, what's going on?" Lily asked, hooking her fingers onto his left sleeve.

"It's the ritual." He told her. Realizing she was still confused, he was quick to explain. "Witches and wizards get this tattoo when they're eleven years old. It's done with some kind of spell that makes it so you can't see the results until you're seventeen, which is when you're an adult. At that time a name and an animal will appear, it tells you who you'll love until you die."

"What if you don't want to love that person?" She looked scared.

"Well it's supposed to be your soulmate or something like that, so you're meant to love each other. Sometimes they're unrequited love though and some people never have a name appear… There are a lot of flaws with the system, but a soulmate match hasn't failed yet."

"How do you tell if you're soulmates?"

"Well, you'll get each other's names underneath the animal and you'll have the same animal. Depending on your personality and sexuality, you may have opposite genders or the same gender. Some gay people will have male and female counter parts though, so it doesn't matter. Have to have the same animal and opposite name."

"That's kind of cool." Lily's eyes lit up and Severus smiled. "It'll be fun to find out who I get to marry."

"What if you get someone you don't like?" His face dropped. "Or if it never shows up because you don't have someone?"

"You said that whoever it is we're meant to be, I'm sure that my future partner will be someone I can love." She clenched her fist in preparation. "Let's go get tattoo's."

She dragged him off to one of the shorter lines, excitedly jumping until she could get hers. It stung and burn for a couple minutes afterward, but she was assured that it was normal. They were wrapped with plastic wrap to help block impossible infections, she was told that as the skin healed around the tattoo that it would flake. She wasn't worried though, it was a part of the wizarding world. Lily couldn't wait for her seventeenth birthday.

-oOo-

"Where did you get yours mate?" Sirius asked excitedly in the common room. Lily who had been working on homework looked up at the four boys in her year. They were already so close despite only having been at school for a week.

"On my bicep here," James lifted his right shirtsleeve to show off the wrapping.

"Nice, Pete got his on the back of his hand." Sirius laughed pulling up the smaller boys arm.

"Well I thought it might as well be obvious." Peter shrugged, grinning up at him. "Where'd you get yours Remus?"

"On my ankle," Remus smiled pulling up his pant leg. "I can hide it if need be. Sirius?"

"Stomach, right here." He lifted his shirt, showing the patch on his left side.

Staring back down at her essay Lily tried to concentrate, but realized she didn't understand the subject. Slowly she wandered over to the boys who were throwing a piece of crumpled up parchment between each other.

"Um, excuse me." Lily interrupted. They looked up at her. "Do any of you understand the homework we got assigned from McGonagall? The text is confusing me."

"What part don't you understand?" Remus asked kindly sitting up slightly.

"All of it," she cringed.

"Here, let's start from the beginning." James offered sliding off the couch and onto the floor in front of the table. His hand brushed hers as he pulled the textbook to the middle, making it so they could look at it. She jumped back in surprise at the burning sensation in her wrist.

"Sorry, the tattoo still burns a little bit I guess." She blushed and he smiled kindly at her in turn.

"That happens. Some people don't take to it as well." Peter grinned, patting her shoulder.

"You'll be okay Lily," Sirius assured her, leaning into the book as well, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

"Thanks."

-oOo-

June 1995

"Lily," James yelled as he ran through the halls of Hogwarts. "Evans?"

He saw a flash of red toward the end of the hall and he darted after it. His long legs allowed him to cover the corridor in a few strides. He raced around the corner, sliding across the floor and painfully hitting into the opposite wall. He hissed and held his left arm as he continued running.

"Evans," he reached out and grabbed her arm. His fast face nearly sent both of them bowling over to the floor. James pulled her close without thinking, an automatic urge to protect her.

"Let go of me Potter." Lily told him. She placed her arms between them and pushed at his chest.

"Please let me apologize for earlier, I shouldn't have done that to Snape."

"You're right, you shouldn't have. I'm not in a forgiving mood right now, I'm afraid." She spun on her heel, only to feel his strong arms close around her waist. "I will scream."

He let go.

"I don't want to deal with this right now Potter."

"I don't want you to stay angry with me. If people go to bed angry at one another, it makes it harder to be friends with them the next day. I don't want to give up on my chances at ever being a friend to you." James paused. "I know that I'm a bully and an idiot, I know I'm not perfect, and that I get too cocky because I can play Quidditch. I know these things Lily, mostly because you told me. I want to change, I want to become better, but at the same time—my old rivalries still exist."

Lily stayed quiet; she had nothing to say. James Potter was those things and to her, his "rivalries" were excuses for his bad behavior.

"Please Lily, talk to me."

"I don't need any of your damned excuses Potter, grow up."

-oOo-

"Hey, you want to talk about what happened this afternoon?" Remus asked, taking a seat next to Lily in the empty corridor.

He had seen her mad several times before and knew where she liked to hide to get away from things. On the sixth floor was a mostly empty hall with a large banner advertising Hogwarts. About halfway down, if you lifted the banner off the floor there was a little alcove, big enough for a small group to occupy.

"Not really." Lily mumbled.

"Okay." Remus pulled out a book and lit his wand with a lumos.

Lily didn't know how long they sat in silence in the alcove, but after a while, she pulled out of her small cocoon and laid against Remus' shoulder. He didn't say anything, the only noise he made came from the book when he turned a page.

"Have you ever been to Cokeworth?"

"I haven't," Remus admitted.

"It's where I grew up, a poor city. You know what it's like to be poor don't you?"

"I think you've seen my second hand things." Remus chuckled.

"I—well yes I have. There's this part of Cokeworth which is even poorer than the main city." Lily explained. "We call it Spinner's End."

"Sounds like an interesting place."

"I suppose it is.' Lily was quiet again. "Severus grew up in Spinner's End."

"So you met him before you came to Hogwarts."

"Yes, we met when we were nine. Sev and I are best friends. He told me about Hogwarts and magic, he kept telling me that I would be able to go with him when I turned eleven. I could hardly wait."

"I can understand the appeal." Remus nodded. He closed the book.

"Today when he called me a mudblood, for a moment I didn't think that it could be real." Lily admitted.

"Don't use that word Lily." She didn't say anything to his comment.

"He's my best friend Remus." Lily cried into his shoulder.

"I suppose you have to make a decision." He looked at her.

"About what?"

"Snape. You know who he hangs out with, he called you by that derogatory term today, and you have to decide if he's a friend worth keeping around or not." He propped the book open again on his leg.

"Even though Potter and Black provoked him by bullying, I don't think I can forgive him." Lily admitted.

"You need to make that clear to him. You left and didn't see, but Prongs and Padfoot kept on him for what he said. After that he didn't say another word, it was like he resigned himself to it because he knew what he did was wrong. He's going to try and apologize."

"I don't know what to do." Lily's head dropped to his empty leg.

"I suppose you have your assignment." They didn't speak anymore for the rest of the night. Merely sitting in silence, Lily was thankful for Remus' company.

-oOo-

Peter Pettigrew was always one of those people that Lily had wondered about. She wanted to know why he had ended up friends with the other three boys in her house. She supposed it was because they were the only four boys sorted into Gryffindor in their year—but that didn't make a friendship. Lily certainly wasn't friends with every girl in her dorm, only Marlene had sought an active relationship with her.

There had to be something about Peter that she was missing. He was quiet and only excelled in Transfiguration—which matched with James and Sirius. Remus was fair, but it wasn't his best subject. One night in the common room when Peter was studying by himself and Lily decided to approach him. They were past their O.W.L. exams and none of their teachers had assigned any papers. It was relaxation time for fifth and seventh year students.

"Hey," she greeted. Lily sat on the floor next to the coffee table.

"Oh, er, hey Lily." He looked nervous. "What are you doing?"

"I was curious to see what you're studying since exams are over. Thought I might read for a bit."

"I'm looking at some advanced Transfiguration books."

"No wonder you're so good at that subject. I can barely understand our assigned readings."

"You're good at Charms though," he complimented.

"I suppose." She shrugged. "How'd you become friends with Potter, Black, and Lupin?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I was curious as to how someone could be friends with them, Remus I understand, but Potter and Black-" she paused, "I don't understand it personally."

"Friends are made without much thought, aren't they?" Peter looked at her so seriously that she believed him. "You find people you trust and you're friends."

"I guess it's not quite that easy for girls." She put her chin on her hand.

"You can consider us friends Lily. We might even eventually spill our deepest, darkest secrets with each other." Lily laughed.

"We just might."

-oOo-

It wasn't until their sixth year when everything started to change for them. That year they were turning seventeen and soon they would know their designated soulmates.

While she was packing for the year, Lily spent a long while staring at her list. She had a sweatband on her nightstand which had her favorite's band's symbol on it. Swallowing hard, she threw it into the trunk. If she felt the need to hide her tattoo.