Chapter Text
September 1, 1997
“This is going to be my year,” Hermione whispered to herself after a final hug from her mother and kiss on the forehead from her father.
Walking onto the Hogwarts Express wearing the Head Girl’s badge should have sent a rush of pride and purpose running through her, but Hermione mostly just felt nauseous.
Everywhere around her at the station, her classmates were rushing into the arms of their boyfriends and girlfriends or hurriedly pulling their best friends onto the train and into private compartments to show off the soulmarks that had arrived over the summer break.
Hermione didn’t bother keeping an eye out for Ron. There was absolutely nothing, not even the promise of seeing Luna (who he had seen plenty of all summer, considering the younger girl lived within walking distance of the Burrow), that would get Ron, Ginny and the rest of the accompanying Weasleys to King’s Cross with more than 10 minutes to spare before the express departed for Scotland.
She didn’t attempt to look for Harry either, but in her more-punctual friend’s case, that was because he’d almost certainly made his godfathers bring him an hour early so he could have some alone time with his soulmate, who he had only seen a handful of times throughout the holidays. Something he mentioned in every. single. letter. they’d exchanged this summer.
Hermione loved both her best friends dearly, and she was very happy for them to have both found their soulmates and been making it work with the two highly-unusual (to put it nicely) people they shared their bonds with. But when they were with their soulmates, it was . . . a bit much.
She sighed and started making her way to the prefect’s carriage in the front of the train. She was fine to leave her luggage shrunk down in her pocket, and Crookshanks had been feeling under the weather the past few days, so she had left him with the on-staff handler at the Magical Menagerie yesterday for a checkup. The man had been happy to help and said he would send her an owl when she could use Professor McGonagall’s floo to come pick him up. Hermione felt odd, walking onto the Express without Crookshank’s carrier in her arms, but it worked out for the best now that she could go directly to where the meeting with the prefects would take place. She wanted to give herself time to think over what she wanted to say before the others arrived.
She was sure to beat the Head Boy there, at least. She scoffed. Even though he was likely here an hour ago and will likely walk in at the last minute with swollen lips and somehow-unruffled hair.
Hermione was still not a fan of Tom Riddle.
He’d relaxed some since Harry had accidentally grabbed hold of the streaky lightning that covered the Slytherin’s inner left forearm the year prior when her normally graceful friend had tripped over his own feet and fallen right into Tom’s arms like some romantic comedy her mother had pulled her into the living room to watch when she was a little girl. Over the months since the “Have you fallen for me, Harry?” incident, as she and Ron had dubbed it, Tom’s comments had gotten a little less sharp, his smiles a little more sincere, and his appearance a little more rumpled thanks to Harry’s willingness to snog his soulmate anywhere. Truly anywhere.
Hermione didn’t hate Tom or anything. She’d learned better than to judge a Slytherin by the color on their robes long before Tom started joining them for breakfast. Plus, he made Harry happy. That was all Hermione really wanted for her friends, so she’d keep her reservations to herself.
There was just something about his whole ‘charming savant’ persona that set the hairs on her arms on alert, an awareness of him that slid under her skin and sat wrongly. But she wouldn’t give her opinion until Harry asked it of her.
And he wouldn’t ask it of her . She sighed again as she pulled out the preliminary patrol schedules she and Tom had coordinated about via owl this summer. Harry and Ron were emotionally constipated, and they knew it, so at this point, their solution to her soulmate situation–or lack of soulmate situation–was usually to leave the words and the questions and the concerns unspoken.
It was a gap, a blank, unfilled, incomplete space in the tapestry of their friendship, just like her still-absent soul mark left her incomplete.
Hermione stilled her hands. The small reaves of parchment could not get any straighter. She’d just give herself paper cuts at this point. She looked over the unadorned skin of her hands, her wrists, her forearms and held back a wince as she remembered that it had been another unsuccessful morning of standing naked in front of her bedroom mirror searching for any hint of the soulmark that should have appeared last September .
Ron had tried to reassure her countless times throughout their sixth year before the subject had just been too much for all of them.
“Hermione, it happens sometimes,” he’d told her over breakfast last November. “Not often, mind you, but it does. Honestly, if you think about it, s’not really that surprising it happened to you .”
It had felt like being slapped. She’s still not sure what expression she’d had on her face as Ron dug into his toast, but it must have been devastated enough for Harry to kick the shit out of their friend beneath the table.
In hindsight, she’d been a frantic, neurotic mess, wondering just what was so wrong with her that her mark hadn’t appeared, and the boys had been surprisingly patient with her. But it had been morning, Ron had gotten barely a bite in, and he had finally taken one too many static shocks from just sitting next to her as her hair sparked and roiled in her upset.
He’d apologized (after pulling his legs up onto the bench and cradling his shins, eyes shining with tears. Harry had kicked him
hard
) quickly enough. “Fucking hell, Harry, I get it, I hear it now. I’m sorry, Hermione. That sounded–. That’s not how I meant that to seem.” He took a hand off his shin and quickly reached over to squeeze her shoulder in apology or comfort or something to make her feel better.
“I just meant that, while it doesn’t happen often, sometimes marks don’t come in on the day or your magical majority. I’m sure you’ve already read about this in some footnote somewhere–”
Her voice had been soft and wavering as she said, “I haven’t.”
Ron’s blue eyes had looked over at her, wide and regretful. “Oh, well, then I was an arse.”
His face turned red at the sounds of Hermione’s watery chuckle and Harry’s snort. “Yeah, yeah, I know, what a surprise. But really, Hermione, I just meant that the cases where someone has a delayed mark are usually because that person isn’t mentally ready to see their soulmate as their soulmate.”
She wiped her eyes with the edges of her napkin and asked, “So I’m not ready to meet my soulmate then?”
His eyebrows furrowed as he chewed on his words. Ron’s hands were methodical, cutting up bitesize pieces of eggs as he thought about a better way to explain. “No, it’s more like you could have an idea about soulmates in general that would be difficult to overcome if you found your soulmate now. Or you could have an image of your soulmate in your head that’s incongruent with a healthy relationship. I dunno, truthfully.” He rambled, tucking back into his food.
“Incongruent, damn Ron, that’s pretty good for this early in the morning.”
“Fuck right on off Harry, my shin is still stinging.” Ron rolled his eyes as Harry smirked into his morning cup of tea.
The redhead continued where he left off after giving his friend a few moments to think. “It happens, delayed soul marks, but it’s pretty rare, and I’ve really just heard about it in passing. I just know it’s usually a mental block kinda thing, and for all that you’re brilliant, you’ve a tendency to think yourself into a hole of your own making. That’s really all I meant by it, Hermione.”
And she’d forgiven him, the thoughtless comment already in the past. But she hadn’t forgotten the point of that conversation. Not once in the 10 months since.
She was the reason her skin had remained blank. Her mind, her most valued possession, was working against her.
Hermione shook her head as if the motion could rid her of the self-doubt that had been clinging to her thoughts like a film for the past year.
It was no use worrying about her soulmate or her mark right now. She had a prefect’s meeting to get through. There’d be time to worry again later. There always was.
As both the left and right owl eyes rotate back to her palms, Lavender once again laments how she usually has to keep her marks covered.
Sure, the silk gloves she wears are elegant and feel glorious against her skin, but she’s proud of the molten-looking irises and the large pupils that make her marks so haunting.
Like how an owl can turn its neck 180 degrees, the eyes that usually sit cushioned in her palms can shift to the tops of her hands. They almost always move like that when she’s painting her nails, and it makes Lavender feel a little less lonely as she engages in her weekly ritual.
They’re eerie, but beautiful. The symbolism within them makes Lavender think that maybe, just maybe, she and her soulmate could bridge the divide that has separated them since they were children.
Parvati, the only person other than her parents who has seen her soulmarks, no longer joins Lavender as she does her nails. Parv finds the eyes disturbing. She tries to keep her distaste at the sight of them contained, but they’ve been best friends for years, long before their marks arrived, and Lavender can recognize Parvati’s discomfort in every minute twitch of her lips or the slight fidgeting of her fingers. She keeps her gloves on even when the two of them are alone. She even has a special pair of fingertip-less gloves for when she does readings.
Lavender needs skin-to-skin contact when she’s tracing the path of a life line, and it’s easiest to channel her magic directly into a locator crystal rather than forcing it past a medium–even one as permeable as silk. Her tarot cards would flat out refuse her if she didn’t allow her fingerprints to sink into the potioned papyrus. She’d spent years crafting her deck and infusing her magical signature and her blood within the divine representations. Any reading, through any medium, that she gave without renewing her connection to the pathways she’s spent years opening would be faulty, and for all that so many wix find divination to be a wooly practice, Lavender has always known to which field of magic her gifts belonged.
Her soulmate may be a Nimue, but Lavender is an Isolt.
Her gifts are not of practical magic or enchantment. Lavender is a witch of crafted tools and the subtle shifts of magical currents. Her magic is not a light show or a shield so steady it looks opaque when cast, not like Hermione’s. Lavender’s soulmate is talented beyond belief, and her drive for excellence is intoxicating to behold, but Hermione only seems to respect the kind of magic that she herself performs, the kind of witchcraft that is overt and blinding.
But that is not Lavender. Lavender’s magic is a shimmer, it ebbs and flows like the tide, and it follows paths no matter how far they deviate from the expected journey.
Hermione is a sorceress while Lavender is a prophetess.
That’s a tad too poetic, even for my tastes .
Lavender scoffed both at her thoughts and at the last swipe of the nail polish that had put a thin strip on her skin. The color was a purple so dark and so deep that one could only differentiate it from black in the right light. She’d never have chosen this shade a few years ago, but as her magic grew and she’d begun to See, Lavender had grown to appreciate the hidden depths of beauty in colors and people and practices that she used to scoff at the mere idea of.
When she’d arrived at Hogwarts, Lavender had tended towards pinks and pastels. If she was feeling bold or exceptionally flirty, maybe she’d choose a bright red or another jewel tone, but she shied away from ‘boring’ neutrals or shades that trended too dark or black. She’d hated dirt and sweat, showering daily and taking particular care to avoid making a mess of herself in herbology.
But that was before she learned how to make blood-crafted implements, before she knew how much clearer her sight was when she used them. That was before she’d split the belly of an elk and held its intestines in her hands. That was before she’d come to appreciate the way consecrated earth grounded her, the way soil sunk under her nails as she anchored herself in the grass to hold onto her sanity while channeling the magic of the ley lines.
Lavender still loved pretty things. Hand-knit shawls of pale pink yarn and pearl teardrop earrings. The soft cups of calla lilies swaying in the wind and the sweet way a drop of dew sat perfectly atop a blade of grass in the early morning. Ringlet curls and rosy cheeks and freesia scented perfumes. All those things remained sights and sounds and feelings of loveliness to her, but the more Lavender had delved into the true practice of divination, the more she’d heard the call of wildness.
Things she now found stunning, breathtaking:
The graceful way a doe sprints through the forest, legs extended in trust the ground will be there when it lands; a predator’s snarl shattering the glen’s silence . Haruspicy was her least favorite of the divine arts, but Lavender was capable of utilizing the practice when her questions called for that level of animalistic connection. Answers that narrow called for sacrifice, and something deep in her chest sang at the feeling of still-warm lifeblood flowing over her fingers as she followed the twists and turns of an animal’s intestines, seeing the likeliest paths she was yet to take. Blood had become a vessel of truth rather than terror.
The deathly pale, perfect curve of a boiled bone; the way a scream or a roar rattles within your chest as it leaves, within your ears as it breaks. Cleromancy came naturally to Lavender, but only when it was self-directed. Her set of knuckles would be of little use in guiding the choices of another. Her bones were too connected to her soul, especially after what she’d done to acquire them. They would reveal answers but only in relation to her. She could read the message of other sets of bones connected to their throwers, but the average wix did not create a bonded set of bones, let alone carry them on their person. Bonded bones were a weight upon the soul. Lavender thought the clacking sound they made within their silk drawstring bag was delightful.
The ozone-sharp scent of magic as a spell breaks the wrong way, creates something new and terrifying and reality-splitting; hooded, hazy eyes after the surge of magic leaves, the aftereffects of power expended, the first step onto the path emblazoned. She was not a sibyl in name or in talent. She was not overcome by the portents of time. She was not a mouthpiece. Lavender was a diviner. She was the finger that pointed, the eye that saw, not the ear that heard whispers from a patron beyond, not the lips that molded to words not her own. Lavender does not see Fate or Destiny; she sees choices, made and unmade, and the way life twists to accommodate them.
She’s still waiting for Hermione to make a choice. Any choice at all.
Her soulmate is a study in the methodical. Hermione is rigid, not inflexible, but typically unwilling to bend unless she’s determined through comprehensive evidence that bending is the best way to move forward.
The older girl thinks she wants a mark, thinks she wants a soulmate no matter who that soulmate ends up being. But she doesn’t. Not yet. Hermione wants someone who respects her, who she can respect. Hermione thinks she wants to be challenged, but she doesn’t want to be challenged in a way that might indicate she’s the one who has been in the wrong.
Hermione’s mark won’t ever come in if all she’s ever willing to notice of Lavender is that she’s an average, feminine witch.
And Lavender is an average witch. She’s not powerful the way Hermione or her friends are. Her transfigurations are weak, and she struggles to power a full runic array on her own.
And Lavender is feminine. Even with her expanded interests since diving into the more Celtic or Wiccan traditions, she still paints her nails once a week, she still applies makeup daily, styles her hair, invests in lotions and creams and scrubs for her face and skin.
Her soulmate doesn’t see the value in any of it. Not the self-care Lavender works hard to offer herself and not in the magic to which she is devoted.
It’d be easy to be frustrated. It’s an open secret that Hermione Granger’s mark hasn’t come in, and Lavender was raised hearing the stories of delayed marks. She knows what it means, has known what it means longer than she’s looked down at the owl eyes resting in her palms, the ones that almost perfectly resemble her most aggravating roommate’s. She’d scryed the sprigs of lavender that will encircle Hermione’s brow and drop two petals down between them like a floral circlet. It’s been years. She’s known since she was fourteen.
It’s been four years since she saw Hermione’s face, wreathed in lavender, staring up at her from the still waters of the pond she uses to scry on the morning after the new moon. It’s been four years and Lavender has known every day since then that if nothing changes, then she and her soulmate will never be for each other.
How could they be, when Hermione feels nothing but disdain for everything Lavender holds dear.