“Hey Lils, you’re staring again.”
Lily looks up from her thigh, instinctively covering the red bow tattooed above her knee with her skirt. Upon making eye contact with Remus, she glares and with a frown on her face says, “Not all of us get to marry our soulmates, Remus. I’m allowed to miss her. You think I don’t catch James tearing up when he looks at his after every shower? I love him, but it doesn’t change anything. She left me but Regulus died on James. So give me a break if I think about how I have to live up to a dead person while I miss my best friend and you get to be married to yours.”
Remus frowns and runs his finger absently over the Canis Major tattoo on the back of his hand. While he’s had this discussion with Lily multiple times, he assumed James had grieved Regulus already, had moved on.
It had been 4 years since the day James’ tattoo turned gold, signifying his other half was no longer alive and waiting for him. James had been hiding it under bulky sweatshirts and large bandages, often giving outsiders the impression that he’d been injured, with a large wound on his back. That day was no exception, but when Sirius pulled up to James’ little flat in West London on his motorbike, James grabbed his wand and summoned his swim trunks, carrying both as he ran out to meet him.
“Hey Pads, are you sure you just needed me to bring a suit? I can pack some snacks real quick if you- Hey what’s wrong?”
James had been glancing back at the house and when he looked up at Sirius he saw his eyes were swollen and red, like he’d been crying before arriving at James’ place.
Sirius wasn’t looking at James’ face though. He was staring at James’ shoulder, and the little piece of the Leo tattoo that was visible from the front whenever James wore a crewneck sweater. “The sickle”, Sirius had told him. The head of the Lion. Usually the black lines weren’t starkly noticeable on James’ dark skin, only to those who knew it was there and the pain it caused James. But as Sirius broke down on the street in front of that little flat, James’ started to panic.
“Padfoot what happened?! Is it Remus? Please, Pads. Talk to me.” James said, falling to the ground to pull Sirius into a hug. This only made Sirius sob harder and between sobs one word slipped out.
“Reggie.”
James tensed and let go of Sirius. He stood up slowly and walked over to the mirror on Sirius’ motorbike. Taking a shaky breath, James pulled his sweatshirt off and turned. There, on his shoulder where James’ had grown to expect deep black lines and 3 sharp black initials, was gold. RAB. 9 straight golden lines connected by 9 little golden stars. James couldn’t breathe.
“It was in the paper. His death. I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t. And I thought, ‘James would’ve said something, he would’ve known’. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how you don’t look. How you are alone and you don’t look and you won’t know and I didn’t want you to find out without someone and I hoped-,” Sirius began hyperventilating though his sobs and James wanted to help him. He did. But James couldn’t breathe. James felt like he was suffocating. Black spots appeared in his vision and he hoped it was the black returning to his tattoo. Maybe it was a mistake, James thought, right before passing out next to the bike.
From that day on James never covered his tattoo. Everyone assumed he wore it like a badge of honor. His reminder that Regulus was his and he would have his chance to love him in the next life. When James and Lily reconnected after the war, which ended with the death of Voldemort around the time the tattoo turned gold, he made it clear to her that he had lost his soulmate and that wouldn’t change. Lily understood, and she made sure to show James the ribbon on her knee and the initials just above it, MRM. At that point, James and Lily decided that they were going to make the most of what life they had left for those they lost to the war. James, who lost the hero who stopped the war and Lily, to the obliviation of her best friend and love of her life to protect her from the war. They never spoke of marriage or children, but they did speak of the dream. The dream where they come back. Over bottles of wine and tears that never seem to stop, they dream of both getting their soulmates back. And when Lily moved in to James’ little flat, they both shed a few tears for the first step towards moving on. They grieved for themselves, and they grieved for each other.
James would never know that Lily stared at her tattoo on her thigh fearing for the day it turned gold, and Lily would never know that James stopped hiding his in the hopes it would maybe, just maybe, turn black again.
There was a knock on James and Lily’s door. This wouldn’t be unusual except that everyone who could be stopping over, was already over. Peter and Olivia were the last to arrive so they were still walking around greeting everyone. Lily, Remus, and Dorcas were in the kitchen getting drinks for James, Sirius, and Marlene, who were all out back throwing a quaffle around on their brooms. Lily hands Remus James’ drink and goes to answer the door. Giving a little smile to Peter, Lily waves her wand and uses a nonverbal spell to peek through the wards. On the other side of the door was a dark skinned woman with curly black hair tied up in two buns, wearing a plaid long sleeved top over a black knee length dress, looking a little overwhelmed but determined. She had a little backpack sitting by her feet and a crumpled map in her hand. She reached forward to knock again and before her knuckle could touch the door, Lily had thrown the door open.
“Mary.” Lily breathed.
Everyone in the room behind Lily stopped at her name, and Peter flung around so hard he stumbled a little. Mary looked at Lily and then behind her at the gathering going on and blushed and stuttered while saying, “I’m sorry l didnt think you’d have guests. I don’t know why I didn’t think you’d have guests. I don’t even know you and I just… what? Assumed you’d be sitting at home watching the telly? I’m sorry, just… forget it.”
And Mary turned to walk away and then stopped suddenly.
“How do you know my name?” She asked without turning back around. Lily didn’t know what to say, what she could say. So she returned the question with another question.
“Do you know who I am, Mary? Do you remember me?” Lily asked, begging all the Gods that Mary does. Mary turns around, shaking a little.
“I’ve… I’ve been dreaming about you. For months now. I don’t understand it. But sometimes I get these… they can’t be memories because they aren’t possible, but these daydreams about magic and a castle and war. About a red and gold scarf around my neck and a girl with blonde hair and… and you. Every time you. And I didn’t know you were real until a week ago when I went to interview at a university 3 blocks from here and I saw you. I saw you sitting at a table in a coffee shop right next to the building I was supposed to be interviewing in and I saw you touch your knee. Right here,” and Mary lifted her skirt to her mid thigh revealing a tattoo of a dragonfly with the initials LJE, “and I thought, maybe you’re her? So I missed my meeting and I may have… followed you here. And I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t have time that day and I was scared and so I came today but it looks like I’m interrupting a party but I just… how do you know my name? And why have I been dreaming about you?”
There was silence from everyone for a long time. Too long maybe. Mary looked like she was going to bolt, and Lily looked like she was going to throw up. Remus, being the most level headed of the group, decided to intervene.
“Mary, would you be willing to come inside? I can’t explain most of your questions but I think Lily might need a min-,” but Remus was interrupted by Sirius and Marlene bursting in through the backyard door.
“Dorcas! I whipped these boys’ arses so bad you wouldn’t believe! I wish you had come out and seen it!” Marlene says from the kitchen, completely unaware of what is happening just one room over.
“Hey babe? I need you to remain calm but… we have a guest.” Dorcas’ gentle voice travels to where Marlene is currently removing her boots in the kitchen, but hearing the tone Marlene heads over to the living room faster than if she was on a broom. Upon seeing Mary’s face Marlene throws her arms around the unsuspecting girl and chokes out a sob.
“Mary! How are you here?? I thought we’d never see you again! Lily it’s Mary!”
Marlene gushes, glancing over to see Lily’s already pale face getting paler every second.
“Someone grab Lily, she’s about to pass out,” Marlene says as calmly as she can, still holding a tense Mary in her arms. Less than a minute later, Lily was falling to the floor and from across the room James, who walked in moments before, waved his wand and said aresto momentum, slowing Lily’s fall until she was gently laying on the floor.
Everyone looks over at James, then Lily, and finally Mary. Eyes wide, Mary opens her mouth and closes it over and over, trying to get words to come to the surface.
“It was real?” She finally says.
“It was real,” Remus replies, “but I don’t know how you remember so if you wouldn’t mind staying here while I get someone to come help figure out how this is happening, that would be great. We have food, drinks…?”
Mary just nods and sits on the couch next to Olivia.
“I don’t know you!” Olivia says, a little too loud. “I mean, I never met you before. Like, I think everyone else here knows you, and I’ve heard about you, but I don’t know you. So if you want, we can get to know each other, which is probably less awkward than trying to talk to people you don’t know but do know, you know?”
Olivia and Peter have been dating for 2 years and she is a welcome perspective to the group. Olivia grew up a muggleborn in America, where being a muggleborn means so much less than England. When Olivia moved to London to be a writer for the Daily Prophet, her first writing assignment was to interview the Holyhead Harpies newest recruit, Marlene McKinnon. Marlene gave a great interview but instantly saw how much Olivia reminded her of Peter. So instead of going home after the interview, she invited the girl out for drinks at the Leaky, where the gang was all meeting up. This began Olivia’s slow joining into the Marauders.
James walks out the back door, summoning a bottle of whiskey as he goes. He doesn’t plan on coming back in until Lily gets a chance to talk to Mary. He had just taken his first sip when he heard the door slide open and closed.
“Pads, I’m fine I promise.”
“It’s not Sirius, James.”
James turns around and looks at Lily. They both stare for what feels like an hour when James smiles and gets up to hug Lily, spinning her around. “What are you doing here? You should be inside with Mary!”
Lily’s eyes are filled with tears as she looks at James. “I’m sorry,” she says, with so much grief in her eyes you’d think she took away James’ dream.
“No,” James stops her. “Don’t do that, don’t apologize. If this were Reggie I’d already be gone.”
Lily blinks her tears away and smiles at James.
“Thank you James. It’s going to be hard but hopefully when we get a healer out we can figure out what we need to do to get her back all the way. I just… I wish I could do the same for you.”
“I’m going to crash at Pads tonight. Not because I don’t want to stay here,” James says, when seeing the apprehension on Lily’s face, “but it’s the full moon tomorrow night and I figured I could just stay the whole weekend instead of coming and going. Mary is welcome to stay as long as she wants, especially if the healer needs her to be within access to a floo for any reason. Go back inside Lils. Go talk to her.”
And with that James goes to turn back around and sit in the grass, but Lily stops him. She pulls him down for a hug and does something she has never done before. She gently pulls back his shirt and kisses the golden star she knows by now is Regulus.
“Thank you,” she whispers, “thank you for giving her back to me.”
With that she turns back inside and slips in as Sirius slips out.