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Hermione knows that she"s different before she ever steps foot in Hogwarts. She"s born a squalling, red-faced baby with words across her chest, covering her brown skin with dark black letters.
Her parents look at one another anxiously, exchanging uneasy looks as the nurses whisper under their breath.
"Did you see?"
"I couldn"t believe my eyes! Such a lovely baby too…"
Perhaps this is why she never fits in with her peers, why she lingers on the edges of conversations and goes home alone while the rest of her class only gets closer. Hermione feels like she"s floating above the rest of them, going through the motions of what it means to live through a childhood. Her parents think she"s too reserved for a child, that she should be playing with others.
But how can she go to sleepovers or swim in Jenny"s pool down the road when words are wrapped around her wrist, scrawled underneath her neck, decorating the curve of her collarbone?
Hermione stares at herself in the mirror, looks at the words that have been a constant to her when no one else has. She thinks she hates them. She thinks they"re the only thing that she can rely on.
On her collarbone, in scrawled, messy writing — spiky letters and loopy G"s — there are the words I think it"s just passed out.
That one always makes her pause. What had passed out? She brushes her fingers against the protruding bone of her clavicle, but the letters are smooth against her skin, as embedded in her as the blue veins that decorate her wrist.
Diagon Alley is the first time Hermione sees anyone with marks similar to hers. Her parents are wide-eyed and full of wonder, and on another day, Hermione would be too. On another day, where she hadn"t spotted a man, half asleep at the bar, curved words decorating his cheekbone.
Hermione takes a sharp inhale of breath and steps closer, her feet gravitating towards the man. The letters are slanted, and written in cursive, contrasting sharply against the pallor of his pale skin: Oi! Move out of the way!
She tries to take another step forward, to take a closer look at the words that look so similar to her own, but her father"s hand is on her shoulder, pulling her back.
"Come on, Hermione," he says, and she"s pulled away from the answers to the questions that had simmered underneath her skin since before she knew how to read the words that mark her.
It"s Neville Longbottom in the end who explains the significance to her.
"Oh!" He exclaims as she reaches out to open a carriage door and the sleeve of her robes falls back to reveal the writing wrapped around her wrist — Are you a witch or not? "Is that your soul mark?"
Hermione has scoured through the textbooks she bought, looking for any scrap of information to explain why her parent"s bodies were smooth and unmarred and her own was covered with incomprehensible words. But Neville Longbottom has revealed more information in a careless question than months of study have.
Hermione looks at Neville and then glances down at her wrist. When she got her Hogwarts letter, after McGonagall had visited her to explain that she was magical and there was a reason for the oddities surrounding her, she brushed her thumb against the word witch for the rest of the night.
Witch. Witch. Witch.
She was a witch. She had magic humming underneath her veins, and the words were a constant, indelible reminder.
"Soul marks?" Hermione asks curiously. Her task of finding Neville"s pet is forgotten, and she"s staring at him, her eyes wide with hope and fascination. "What are soul marks?"
Neville tells her what the words mean. Not her words, specifically, but he explains that witches and wizards are born with the most significant phrases from friends, lovers, family — the people who shape their lives. He shows her his bashfully, elegant script decorating his forearm: There are all kinds of courage.
But he brushes his hand against his chest, and Hermione thinks that perhaps some things aren"t meant to be shared. She shifts her ponytail to hide the words underneath her collar, the ones she looks to when she feels melancholy or restless.
Harry is the first person that Hermione hears the words of her soul mark from.
"I think it"s just passed out," he says, staring down at the troll lying limp in the ruined wreckage of the bathroom. Her heart leaps within her chest, the familiarity of the words from someone else"s mouth sending a bolt of electricity through her, a frisson of nerves and anticipation underneath her skin.
She doesn"t say anything at the time, doesn"t mention it to him for months. It"s not until Harry"s mouth gapes open when they"re standing, eleven years old and faced with a riddle designed by a Professor who"s more than double their age. Her heart feels impossibly full in her chest, and her ears are filled with the sound of blood rushing through her body, and she chokes out, "Harry — you"re a great wizard you know."
Harry"s mouth jars open, his green eyes wide with shock.
But he"s still Harry Potter, so he spins on his heels and goes off to face Voldemort for the first time among many, and he"s eleven — his robes still drape around him, extra inches allowed for him to grow into.
It"s not until he"s in the hospital wing later, a cotton hospital gown on, and looking so young, that he grants Hermione a small, shy smile.
He says, "Hermione, did you know…er, that is…"
Hermione pushes down the collar of her robes to show Harry the words he had said to her in the bathroom on the first floor, a troll unconscious between them, and beams back.
"Me too, Harry," she says, soft and fond. "Me too."
She doesn"t even realise — not until weeks later — that Ron had said something to her too, when devil"s ivy was wrapped around their wrists and legs, immobilising them in their snare.
"Are you a witch or not?"
Hermione doesn"t tell Ron until much later. He doesn"t tell her until they"re in the middle of a war that he has her own words in tiny, cramped writing against his ankle: Oh, are you doing magic, let"s see then.
His cheeks are bright red when he admits it, his voice low and fast as he confesses that, at first, he hadn"t told her because, well, he thought she was a bit of a snob. And then, it never seemed like a good time. It"s not until her arms are wrapped around his neck, and their kissing, basilisk teeth scattered around their feet, that he says: "Hermione, you"re one of my soul marks."
She thinks that means she loves him, folds the fact away and takes it out to look at when she thinks about their differences. About Ron being so impossibly stubborn, about her always needing to be right, about the way their fights leave anger simmering underneath her skin, even when they"ve made up, and his arm is around her shoulder, warm and familiar.
Perhaps this is why she lets the relationship go on for much longer than it should. Because when she looks down at her wrist and sees Ron"s painfully familiar handwriting, a kind of knowledge that only comes with editing his essays for six years, it feels… it feels like it"s meant to be.
Harry has Ginny"s words on him, too. Well, that was a bit stupid of you curls around his thigh, and Hermione notices how he rests his hands over the spot, the way he glances back at Ginny, his expression almost painful to look at – raw and exposed.
So, Harry has Ginny. And Hermione has Ron.
It"s meant to be, she thinks each time Ron kisses her on the cheek. She thinks about the words on her wrist when she finds herself late at work, her mind caught up in the intricate wording of a paper that she needs to read before she goes home. She reminds herself of it when she gets back to their flat and there"s the familiar sting of guilt at the dinner laid out on the table, Ron"s cooking long gone cold.
It"s meant to be.
Except it"s not.
"I love you, Hermione," Ron says miserably. His bags are by the door, and she looks at the worn tan leather, can imagine brushing her hands against the cracks that have formed with age. Maybe, if she split herself open, she might find similar cracks littered through her. Because who else has their soulmate leave them?
"I love you too," she says because it"s the truth. She"ll never not love Ron. He"s as much a part of her as her own flesh and blood, as fundamental to her existence as the bones that hold her together.
He just doesn"t want to be with her.
There must be something fundamentally broken within her. Harry doesn"t know how to deal with the misery that has plagued her since Ron left, tries to tamper down his blindingly obvious affection for Ginny as if she"s really going to be upset or mad that Harry Potter is happy.
She wants him to be happy.
She wants Ron to be happy too – feels a bittersweet ache when she finds out that he"s started dating Luna Lovegood of all people. He hadn"t even noticed when Luna had said his own words, the ones on his wrist, That was funny. It wasn"t until Luna had mentioned it to him, in her customary unflappable way, that he was her soulmate, proffering her forearm up for him to inspect (Nice commentary last match!) that Ron had realised.
He had told Harry and Hermione about it, his cheeks tinged with a rosy pink from pleasure. And she"s happy for him – really, she is – even though the idea of Ron and Luna together feels like the universe"s idea of a cosmic joke. She can"t be irritated, not when she sees the way Ron brushes back the wispy blonde strands of Luna"s hair, and she beams back up at him, shy and pleased.
Hermione spends more time thinking about the final words on her body – the ones that no one has said yet. She absentmindedly strokes at the back of her neck, imagining that she can feel the ridges of the letters there, even though she knows she can"t.
She"s happy. She has a job that challenges her, friends that she would die for and vice versa, and she"s fine. She knows better than most that soul marks aren"t necessarily romantic, and she should be content with the knowledge of having Ron and Harry imprinted within her soul as firmly as they are in her heart.
It"s difficult to remember when she sees Luna kiss Ron"s nose or the easy way that Harry and Ginny gravitate towards one another in a crowded room.
But she"s happy. She is. If her hand gravitates to her neck more than usual, it"s merely a nervous habit and nothing else.
The Burrow is as warm and familiar as it has always been, the unofficial home of her adolescence. Hermione"s nursing a firewhiskey in her hand, the burn of alcohol still stinging the back of her throat and unravelling the stress from her limbs.
There"s music playing faintly in the background, but she"s tuned it out, focusing her attention instead on watching Harry and Ginny laughing together. The familiar, ever-present longing comes with it, but Hermione takes another swallow of the firewhiskey to lessen the ache.
She doesn"t even notice when Fred sits beside her until he"s tugging a loose curl that has fallen free of her bun to get her attention.
"Are you alright, love?" He asks, and she softens at the gentleness of his tone and relaxes in the face of his easy-natured smile.
"I"m fine," Hermione says before realisation crashes into her with the weight of a rampaging Hippogriff.
Are you alright, love?
Her hand goes instinctively to the back of her neck, and her mouth gapes open. Fred looks back at her, his dark blue eyes at first confused but settling quickly into understanding.
"Ah," he says. A small grin quirks at his lips. "Figured it out, did you?"
Hermione can"t breathe, her rib cage constricted by an invisible band. The world shrinks down to the sofa, to Fred"s steady presence next to her. The words stutter through her mind, a scratched record playing the snippet of sound over and over again.
"Fred?" She breathes, and it"s a question, a plea. It"s the beginning of a promise.
"Hermione," he shoots back teasingly. His hand returns to the same curl, but this time he brushes it back, securing it behind her ear. His fingers curve over the line of her jaw, the calloused tips against her skin sending bolts of electricity thrumming through her body.
He doesn"t look alarmed. Hermione opens her mouth, but the words die at the back of her throat. Her eyes are stinging, and she feels overly tender under the scrutiny of his steady gaze.
"I"ve known for a while," Fred says in response to her unasked question. He winks at her and says, "Bet you can"t guess what my words are."
She shakes her head weakly, unable to utter even a one-word response. He shifts on the couch, turning around so he can pull down the collar that obscures his neck from view. There, in her own handwriting, she can see I will write to your mother .
A strangled laugh escapes Hermione, and she doesn"t realise until she can taste salty tears that she"s crying too.
"Fred," she says again, her voice stronger this time.
"Hermione," he repeats, turning back to face her. There are two spots of colour decorating his cheeks, but he looks otherwise unperturbed by the realisation that has shaken her world down to its foundations. "Are we just saying each other"s names now?"
"You never said anything."
Fred considers her words seriously, his head tilted to the side as he looks at her. "You had to catch up first," he says as if that explains everything. "I was happy to wait."
He doesn"t lean forward to kiss her or clasp their hands together. He talks to her about work, and the conversation is easy and familiar enough that the nervous knot lodged in her chest eases away.
They start to spend more time together. It"s casual, and Fred"s so careful about it all, hesitant to push her into anything she"s not ready for. She appreciates it at first – some of the cracks within her start to fuse together, the balm of Fred"s cheerful humour softening the hard lines of her edges.
It"s months later when she kisses him for the first time. He"s laughing, the corners of his eyes lined as he tells her about some prank George and he had pulled while they were still in school. She doesn"t consciously register her actions until her hand is pressed against the spot where she knows her writing decorates, and she"s pulling him closer in.
Fred pauses, inches away from her lips. His eyes remind her of the sea, of summer days spent basking in the sun"s warmth.
"Have you caught up yet?" He asks, and his voice is more husky than she"s ever heard. Her heart skips, and she imagines if he looked closely enough, he would see the frantic racing of her pulse against the delicate skin of her neck.
"I"m here, Fred," she says, and that"s all the encouragement he needs before his lips are against hers and they"re kissing. It"s soft and sweet, familiar despite it being their first time. She doesn"t want to separate, wants to ignore the aching in her lungs that burns with the need for oxygen.
When they pull away, Fred smiles at her so brilliantly that it"s almost blinding, and Hermione feels like she"s home.