For the Daily Prompt Challenge at The Golden Snitch. Today's prompt: (dialogue) weird colours. Inspired by the Sir's meds xD
This is a soulmate!au, in which people can't see colour until they see their soulmate after their seventeenth birthday.
Harry breathed deeply before nervously smiling at his friends. Surprisingly, Neville had been the one with the information; he kept talking about a strange herb the French used to see in colour before meeting their soulmate. When he heard, Harry didn't know what to think. They were in the Common Room, in front of the fire. The cold outside made the students bundle up and stay indoors: the perfect time for one of them to suggest it.
It was Lavender.
"I think we should do it, Neville," she said, twirling her hair nervously. Harry had never liked her much; she was an air–headed girl who spent too much time talking about clothes and Divination. Still, these last days when they had to stay inside, Harry had got to know another side of her. He shouldn't have been surprised that she suggested it.
Or that she looked at Ron when doing so. He snickered.
"I don't know if we should," Hermione interrupted, looking at them all in all seriousness. "There is no information pertaining laws and regulations of the Soul Seeking Root and we won't know for sure if this is legal at all."
"More fun this way, isn't it?" Seamus Finnegan said, grinning and shaking Neville's shoulder. The other boy smiled and looked down, nervous. "C'me on, Nev! Bring it here."
Hermione's eyes widened and she leant to whisper to Neville. "You have it already? Neville! You could get into trouble. You could get us into trouble!"
"Please, Hermione," Parvati interrupted, putting her hand on Hermione's shoulder. Harry saw her friend flinch at the contact. She was strange —Hermione never believed she could be friends with anyone except for Ron and himself, which was odd because she always pushed both of them to make new friends. "We'll only have a tiny bit of fun."
"Yeah. We won't get caught if you're afraid this might be illegal," Dean added, smirking.
Harry was secretly sure Dean and Seamus were each other's soulmates and he knew others thought so too, but being fourteen years old meant they wouldn't find out for another three years. Well, two, for Hermione and Parvati, who were older by almost a year.
"Stop this," Ron said, surprising them all. Harry saw him look at Neville. "Is it safe, Neville?"
The boy smiled awkwardly. "They have side effects..."
"There you go!" Hermione said with a smile. "No one will want to risk it, right?"
She was so disappointed when Harry looked at her and spoke for the first time during the exchange. "We should do it."
"Well, side effects include seeing things, hearing sounds and feeling sensations that seem real but don't exist," Neville shared with them, effectively shutting them up and making Hermione and Seamus blink, though Harry suspected that was for opposite reasons. As for himself... He wasn't opposed to the idea.
"You're basically drugging us!" Hermione exclaimed only for the rest of them to hush her. Lavender giggled.
"This is different," Neville said. "Soul Bound Root is not a drug. It's a way to awake your own sight for a few minutes, but the effects on the body and the brain are not harmful at all. That's why it isn't illegal in other parts of the world."
"If it weren't a drug, then the Ministry would have labelled it as a safe for consumption ingredient, which it hasn't," Hermione argued, trying to make them see reason.
Harry and Ron shared a look. No one was convinced. "I want to do it," Ron said.
"Really, Ronald?"
He shrugged. "Weird colours," he said as an explanation. "Everyone says how orange the Weasley's hair is and how green Harry's eyes are but I've never seen those colours!"
Lavender and Parvati nodded.
Hermione bit her lip.
Harry smiled at his oblivious friends. They would get to see the world in colour soon again, too. He looked around; there was no one with whom he felt a strange bond. There was no heart-tugging sensation, no impulsive, sudden anger, nothing that could point him in the right direction. He wasn't like Seamus and Dean or Ron and Hermione. He might spend years after his seventeenth birthday looking at the trees or the sunset or someone else's eyes without seeing more than the same boring shades of grey he always had.
"I'll do it," he said and soon Neville, Parvati and Lavender were echoing his words. They were doing it.
"Fine! But don't come and find me when everything goes wrong," Hermione warned them and she stormed out with her books and Ron behind her.
Harry pretended not to see Lavender's heartbroken glance when she saw them.
"That makes us," Dean said and Seamus laughed. The sound was free in a way Harry had only felt when flying.
"When should we do it?" Parvati asked, always wanting to create schedules for every event in her week (thankfully, she didn't force them all to abide by them like Hermione did).
"What about now?" Neville said. "Before I..."
"Before I back down?" Harry asked with a smirk. "If you do, no one would look down on you."
Neville's grateful eyes made Harry feel awkward. He had never been a good friend for anyone —including Ron and Hermione, and he had been almost five years with them— but maybe this could change it all.
"I want to do it," Neville said firmly and with a smile that left no doubt of it.
"If that's said, let's do it, guys!" Seamus said excitedly, standing up and offering his hand to Parvati, who was at his side. Neville helped out Lavender, who was sitting on the floor by Parvati's feet. Harry was not usually observant, but he didn't miss Neville's pink cheeks.
He wondered if he would be the odd man out, always waiting to see the weird colours Ron said and never once being able to look at them and feel what his parents must have felt when they looked at each other.
Then, when he saw the smiles of the other Gryffindors, he smiled. If he couldn't have a soulmate like James and Lily were, he'd have friends like they did.