In a world before the conventional soulmate tattoos, things were...different, to say the least. More confusing, less high-tech, more up to chance or bugs in the spell who you'd end up with. Before they'd started putting in the tattoos at birth, before the tattoos were even really trusted at all, every witch or wizard, once they came of age, had a choice: get the tattoo, or stay bare. Many chose to stay bare; there was a lot of superstition around that time and no one was too sure how the tattoos worked.

Lily Evans would never know for sure why she chose to get the tattoo.

Perhaps it was that she was Muggleborn- the concept was so interesting, so different, that she couldn't help but be curious. Perhaps it was that her love life was still hopeless almost a year after ending things with Ludo Bagman, and, as much as she hated to admit it, she was kind of ready for an easier solution. Perhaps it was James Potter's taunting eyes when he told her over the years how she never took chances, was too scared of the results. And okay, she liked to pretend he didn't affect her, but his taunts had a way of worming under her skin.

Either way, Lily found herself escorted by Madame Pomfrey to the Soulmate Tattoo Office of the Ministry, and sitting patiently for a few minutes while a bespectacled wizard performed complicated rituals over her wrist. The wizard wrapped it up in a bandage and patted it, smiling almost condescendingly at her. "It'll be sensitive to light for a few hours, so best to keep it under the bandage. The name will only appear once your soulmate's gotten their tattoo."

"What if I meet them before then?" asked Lily, stiffening a bit.

The wizard just smiled again as he laid her wrist back down on the table and began laboriously wiping down his wand. "You'll know." he said.

And she did. Well, at least she thought she did, the sudden warm, fizzy feeling on her wrist at the moment was in no way normal. But it just wasn't possible, not at all, that her soulmate could be-

James Potter grinned lazily at her. "Problem, Evans?"

"N-no." Lily said, still gaping at him. She shut her mouth quickly and scowled. "Nothing's wrong, Potter, until I saw you." With that, Lily stormed off, hoping he didn't detect anything amiss.

Behind her, she could feel his eyes boring into her back, but she ignored it and rubbed at her bandage. Her wrist was slowly cooling down again, returning to normal. Was it possible that it was just some sort of- weird reaction? A bit of random Hogwarts Magic or something? Could the tattoo be wrong?

She heard footsteps behind her, and tensed, walking faster to get away from him. But the hand that grabbed her arm to slow her down was small, soft, and distinctively not James's. "Lily, what's up?" asked Alice.

Lily bit back a snappish reply as she turned around. Alice was her friend, and it wasn't Alice's fault.. "It's James Potter, does anything have to be up?"

Alice frowned. "You two've been better, though, in the past month since he and Mary started dating. What happened now?"

"He just...we're always around them." muttered Lily. It was partially true- the Marauders hung out with Lily, Alice, and Mary way too much for Lily's liking. But they were surprisingly less obnoxious than they had been in previous years, especially James. Still, not being obnoxious was a whole other thing from being-

"Oh, you've got your tattoo." Alice said, grabbing Lily's bandaged wrist. Just like that, she was cheerfully onto another topic. "Any idea yet?"

Lily chewed her lip, wondering what to say. She hated lying to Alice. "Wizard said not to take it off for a bit." Which was true. "Apparently it's sensitive to light. Are you still not going to get yours? You've been seventeen for months."

"No." said Alice, looking down at the ground. "My parents don't want me to, they've heard some nasty stories about cursed tattoos. And what if it's not..."

Lily laughed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Alice, you two've fancied each other since you set eyes on each other, there's no way you'll get anyone else's name on your wrist."

"You never know." Alice said quietly. "I...I don't know how he feels. He's always so quiet, you know, what if he likes someone else-"

"No, he doesn't." said Lily. "Alice, if there's anyone who are definitely soulmates, it's you two. God, you have no idea how much Mary and I hate it sometimes."

Alice looked down at the floor, pushing her hair out of her face. "Thanks, Lils. I'm sure you'll find a great one, too, when you meet them. And Mary- well, if James isn't it, she'll probably find hers, too."

Lily smiled, although she felt a tight knot of anxiety growing in her chest. "Thank you, Alice. Say, Mary hasn't told you what Emmeline told her this week yet, has she?"

Lily did her best to keep the tattoo off of her mind for the rest of the day, despite the curious whispers from people catching sight of her bandage. She avoided James whenever she could, afraid the strange reaction would happen again and confirm her worst fears, but thankfully, he didn't come over to talk to Mary at all. At lunch time, Lily ducked into the bathroom and peeled the bandage partially off her wrist, just to see.

It was blank. So apparently her soulmate didn't have their tattoo yet. Unfortunately, that didn't rule out James- his birthday was in two months at the end of March- but there were probably billions of people younger than Lily all over the world, and even more her age or older who weren't going to get their tattoo. Honestly, James Potter being her soulmate was pretty unlikely.

For the rest of the day, Lily kept her wrist covered and distracted herself with thoughts of Alice and Frank. They had been dancing around each other for years, and still, no amount of teasing from Lily and Mary convinced Alice that Frank definitely liked her. Alice may have been a master of Duelling and no strange to Gryffindor courage, but she was too shy for her own good when it came to boys.

"I'm telling you, he likes you!" Lily said that night. They were lounging in their room, putting off cleaning up the leftover wrapping paper from Lily's birthday celebration. "It's so obvious, Alice, he wants nothing more than to tear your shirt off with his teeth, but he thinks you're not interested! Back me up, Mary."

"Lily's right." said Mary. "Boys don't carry books for girls that they don't want to date or at least shag. Whenever a guy is unusually helpful, you know he's interested in you."

"I'm sorry, I just don't agree with you!" Alice brought her blanket up to her chest. "Frank is a nice guy, he's one of the only ones out there, he's just carrying my books to be a nice person!"

"Why is it only your books then, huh?" Lily asked. She rolled over onto her back. "Wish someone would carry my books for me."

Mary nudged her with one foot. "Well, you've got someone, you've got yourself a soulmate, only it's been covered all day. I bet they'll carry those books for you."

"Sorry, but this is how long I'm supposed to keep it on!" said Lily.

"Really?" asked Alice. "Amos barely even had his bandage on for an hour."

"Be quiet."

"Really, Lilz, why not just let it out?" asked Mary, sitting up with her arms around her knees.

Lily looked up at her, wondering if she should tell Mary. But no, the 'reaction' was just a mistake. "Because, I don't know, I don't want it to be a big deal. I want to know, yeah, but not everyone else has to."

"Well, they only show the name if your partner has gotten one, too." said Alice.

Lily snorted. "Great help, Alice. Either he's younger than me or isn't going to get one."

"So there isn't a name?" asked Mary, leaning forward.

"I- I don't know." said Lily. "I haven't looked under there at all yet!"

"One way to change that." Mary said, lunging forward.

Lily fell back, trying to get her off. "Mary! No!" she said, laughing. After a few minutes of battling over it, and Alice trying to break them up, Lily emerged victorious, pinning Mary to the sheets. She rolled off of her, wiping off her hands. "Fine, you two. I'll take it off, but if there's anyone embarrassing on there, I'm putting it back on and never taking it off again."

"He's your soulmate, he can't be embarrassing." said Mary, but there was a wicked grin on her face that told a different story.

Lily rolled her eyes at her and turned away to tear the bandage off.

"Here." she said, waving it towards her friends. "Have a look for yourself. It's blank."

Alice and Mary gasped as one and scrambled towards her to examine her wrist.

"Do you have any idea at all?" asked Alice breathlessly. "Did you- did you feel anything?"

Lily shook her head. "No, well, a little today, but I've heard it always goes haywire at first-"

"Well, not really." Mary said. "Who'd it go haywire around?"

Lily's mouth went dry, and somehow the partial truth came out of her. At least it would be ridiculous enough that they would believe her. "The Marauders." she said at last. "But you know that's ridiculous, the only one I even get along with is Remus and he-"

"Remus!" Alice squealed. "It must be Remus! You two will be lovely together!"

"No, no, no, it's obviously not him!" said Lily. "Because remember how we sort of kissed during one of Potter's parties thanks to that dumb game? I didn't feel a thing, and I would have if it were him!"

Mary tapped her chin. "Then who, Sirius? Because obviously it's not Potter, and I hope it's not Peter-"

"Honestly, I'd prefer Pettigrew to Black." said Lily. "At least you can trust Peter, he's not a bad guy. Black, on the other hand...I don't know what he's going to be doing with his future but I know it's not going to be good."

"Well, we could find out which one it is, couldn't we?" said Mary.

Lily eyed her. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Tough. Let's take you and your wrist downstairs, casually stand near them, and see if it happens again!"

Lily shook her head. "It's just supposed to happen once, it's not supposed to-"

"It might, you don't know that." said Alice, grabbing her arms and guiding her up and out of bed. "And isn't the reward worth it? Your soulmate, Lily!"

Lily sighed out a reluctant laugh. "Fine. But I'm putting the bandage back on." As long as they were discreet, everything would be fine.

Of course, with James Potter, there was never any such thing as discreet. Mary immediately went up to him, kissing him and wrapping an arm around him like the good girlfriend she was, leaving Lily and Alice standing in the background awkwardly. Lily waved at Remus, and Mary raised her eyebrows and cocked her head, as if pointing Lily in that direction.

Lily signed and went over to Remus. "Hey, you get the new patrol schedule yet?" she asked, wondering if her tone of voice was too casual.

He raised his eyebrows at her quizzically, but didn't say anything about it. "No, I think Kingsley was supposed to give that out tomorrow night."

"Right." said Lily, giving him her best smile. "I just wanted to check, that was all."

She looked over at Mary and Alice, shaking her head slightly, and Mary immediately grinned. "Hey, Lily, come over here!" she said, gesturing her over. "I want to tell you a secret!"

"We're not second-years, Mary." muttered Lily, rolling her eyes, but she obediently walked over towards Mary, only to have Mary accidentally shove her straight onto Sirius's lap.

He grinned at her. "Wotcher, Evans."

"Piss off, Black." Lily said, disentangling herself from him and sending Mary and Alice significant looks.

For once, however, James actually managed to pick up on what was going on. "What are you doing?" he asked, looking between his girlfriend and Lily. "Why all the glances?"

"Oh, it's nothing." Mary draped herself against him. "You're just imagining things."

"Really." said James. "So Evans's not getting into close proximity with all of my friends for some reason?"

Lily crossed her arms, levelling her gaze at him. "I wanted to ask Remus a question, thank you very much, it has nothing to do with you-"

"You pretty clearly knew the answer to that question already-"

"-and Mary just happened to trip me, it happens." Lily finished loudly. "If you weren't so busy thinking about yourself all the time, maybe you wouldn't think everything was a conspiracy!" Okay, so it didn't make much sense, but she was a bit flustered.

Alice, meanwhile, had maneuvered to be standing over by Peter, the last member of the group. "Lily, come on." she said. "Let's not start a fight. Let's go do something else, okay?" She reached out an arm, raising her eyebrows at Lily.

"See! There it is again!"

"Hate to say it, mate, but I think you're going crazy." said Sirius, tilting back in his chair and leaning one foot against the table. "They're girls, if they've got their secrets, it's got nothing to do with us." He tossed a wadded-up piece of paper across the table at Remus, and Remus deflected it without looking up from his homework.

Lily ignored the boys and walked over to Alice, standing next to Peter. She looked at Peter, then down at her wrist, then up at Alice and Mary again. This time, however, the Marauders were staring at her.

"See, she just did it again!" James said, pointing at her.

"Well, that was a bit weird..." murmured Remus.

"Yeah, she did!" Peter said. "She looked at me, and then she looked over at her friends-"

"No, no, no, I don't know what you're talking about-" said Mary.

"Yeah, Potter, you're being delusional." Lily said, putting her hands on her hips. James's eyes flicked from her face to the bandage on one wrist.

"You-" he said, and Lily traded an alarmed look with Mary while Alice's grip on her arm became painfully tight.

"No, it's not-" Mary began, rubbing his shoulders, but James wasn't listening.

"You got your soulmate tattoo!" he said, walking forward. He grabbed her wrist. "Evans got her soulmate tattoo! Come on, let's see!"

"No!" Lily said, ripping her wrist away. "That's none of your business, and anyways, I'm not supposed to take it off yet, it's sensitive to light or something."

James grinned. "But that's what you were doing here, you were trying to see-"

"Don't you dare get any ideas-"

"Okay, yes!" said Mary, running over to take James's arm before the fight could get much worse. "Lily thought it went off around one of you, so we wanted to test that out. But clearly, she was wrong, or the tattoo just malfunctioned because it was so new. Right, Lils?"

Lily held James's gaze, wondering if he'd felt even a hint of what she did this morning, even without the tattoo. His eyes were mocking, yes, but also curious. "Right." she said, dropping his eyes and turning back to Alice. "Clearly, I was mistaken. C'mon, Alice, let's go finish our homework."

"Are you sure?" called James, far too loudly for the personal matter they were discussing.

Lily stiffened and turned around. "Excuse me, Potter?" she asked, mustering the coldest tone of voice she knew.

"Are you sure it isn't one of us?" He grinned and spread his arms, and Mary buried her face in her hands, looking embarrassed. "Are you sure that Lily Evans isn't destined to end up with one of those no-good dirty Marauders?"

"Prongs." Remus said, and even Peter looked nervous. Sirius, however, was cackling as the whole Common Room turned to stare.

"What do you think you're doing?" hissed Lily.

"I just think people should know that Lily Evans thought her soulmate was a Marauder!" said James, turning to the room. Lily was incredibly grateful that most of Gryffindor was already in bed, otherwise she thought there might be a homicide on hand.

Instead, she just calmly crossed her arms. "What are you trying to prove?"

"Nothing." said James, still grinning. "Just think it's funny, that's all, after you've spent five and a half years pretending not to know us. C'mon, Mary. Stay down here with us."

"No, I'm going back upstairs." said Mary, stepping away from him.

James shrugged, and turned back to the Marauders. Lily raised her eyebrows at Mary, and Mary just rolled her eyes.

"He's like that." she whispered as she rejoined Lily and Alice.

Lily snorted. "You're telling me."

"Oh, please don't start fighting with him again!" said Alice. "You two finally settled down some this month, it'd be a pity for you to lose that again."

Lily sighed. "Yeah, I know,he started it."

"So you didn't feel anything?" Mary asked in a hushed voice. "Not anything at all?"

"Well- no, not really." said Lily, rubbing her wrist, but some of her uncertainty must have shown in her face because Mary and Alice immediately lunged.

"Who was it?" Alice asked. "What did you feel?"

"Nothing at all, I just, it must've been a mistake this morning-"

"Yes, but who was it?" Mary said. When Lily didn't respond, she snorted. "Oh Merlin, I can't decide which one would be the worst soulmate for Lily! Sirius, probably-"

Lily laughed. "Yeah, I didn't feel a thing about Sirius-"

"No, it's James. Definitely James." said Alice. "He's the worst possible soulmate for Lily."

Mary was silent for a moment, and then she nodded. "Yeah, definitely. So what, Lily, was it James?"

"Uh- no." said Lily. "It wasn't."

Alice gasped, eyes going round. "It was Remus, wasn't it? I always knew, you two always had a little-"

"No, no, no, it wasn't!" said Lily. While Remus was probably the most likely of the answers, she just- since they were friends and all, she didn't want to make things weird.

Mary and Alice gasped simultaneously and stared at each other.

"Peter Pettigrew." whispered Alice.

"I- I don't believe it." Mary ran a hand through her hair. "Your soulmate is- is Peter Pettigrew."

"I..." Lily squeezed her eyes shut. They clearly thought it was one of the Marauders, and better Peter than James. "Yes, okay. My soulmate is Peter Pettigrew. Let's just- keep this quiet, all right?"

Mary and Alice were still staring at each other, and Lily growled. "Look, I don't want to talk about it. Clearly it's one of those ones that's supposed to take time, so let's just- let it take time, okay?"

"Fine." said Mary, and Alice nodded, but they continued giving her sideways looks throughout the rest of the week.