Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Twilight.

Author's Note: I had this chapter done as soon as I finalized chapter three. I don't know what it is about this story that has the creative juices flowing, but I'm not upset about it. It's been years since I've been so excited to work on something. Close, but no cigar Jayden. Good to know it wasn't obvious. Also, sorry to burst your bubble, lazygirl89, but as of right now, this story won't have any pairings. I may hint at some, but nothing definite. I've got a solid story line at this point but thanks for the suggestion. Though, it's always possible to add pairings later. Alright, enough rambling. I've noticed that there are a few spelling errors and misplaced punctuation throughout some of the other chapters and have decided to do a final edit once I mark this story as complete. I'm telling you all this now since I know sometimes people like to point them out. I don't have a Beta and edit all my work on my own so it's bound I'll miss thing, but I promise if you're all patient then they'll be fixed eventually.

A Soul's Family

The search went on. He met up with the Mother every few months, when they both had the time. They would talk about how they were fairing in this realm and what they missed from the original. It was during one of these conversations that she brought up her past. Knowing what he did now, he wondered if it was their setting that triggered it. It was late in the afternoon and they had been sitting in a courtyard, watching as a wedding proceeded, when she first spoke up. He learned she was born eighty-five years before him as Esme Anne Platt and had died when she was only twenty-six in 1921. The Mother's story was just as tragic as his own. Unfortunately, it did not end with a happy ending like his. The woman described her childhood growing up on a farm and he'd laugh at the trouble she'd managed to get into. She spoke of her dream to move off the farm and become a school teacher and yet her parents pressured her to stay and take a husband. Her voice lost it's enthusiasm and grew solemn, "I ended up marrying a man named Charlse Evenson. Ours, I'm afraid, was not a happy marriage." She sighed and gazed wistfully at the bride. Balance made a soft noise of comfort.

The woman glanced at him with a reassuring smile and continued. "He wasn't who I thought he was. He was cruel and abusive. My family encouraged me to keep quite about it." She must have seen the look on his face as she pressed on. "You have to understand, Balance. Such a thing, was considered an immense scandal back then and if word ever got out, it would have brought shame on both of our families. Even if I had gone against my families wishes, it is unlikely another man would take me after that." She was right. He didn't understand that. Her family should have protected her. He had always dreamed about leaving his own family when he was a child. He would have hoped that if he had living relatives on his father side, that they would have cared enough to help him. The man's voice was small when he asked her what he feared. "Is that how it happened? Please, Mother tell me this is not how you died." She was so kind and considerate, how anyone could hurt her was beyond him. His heart bleed for her. Balance, himself, was all too familiar with abusive backgrounds.

The woman shook her head and he watched as her eyes teared up. Her voice faltered as she advanced onward with her tale, "He was drafted into the army during World War 1. I was so relieved and I finally felt safe." She suddenly turned to him. "Tell me, was it wrong of me to hope he would die in the war. Does that make me the same as him? I'm not a monster, Balance. I'm not." The Mother sobbed out. Her hands reached out and clutched onto his cloak. Balance wrapped his arms around her, soothing her the best he could. He glanced over at the wedding and the sorrow he felt for her was overwhelming.

"No, it doesn't. You don't have to defend yourself to me, Mother. I promised you; you are anything but a monster." He whispered to her. He watched on as the wedding drew to a close; the souls there not once acknowledging them. Gradually the woman calmed down. She pulled away from him and apologized. He shook his and waved it away. She had nothing to feel sorry for. They sat in silence for a few minutes, before she picked up where she left off. "He came back though and once more I was in hell. Soon after that, I discovered I was pregnant." She took a deep breath and continued, "I was terrified for my unborn child and fled to stay with one of my cousins. He managed to track me down though and I ran as far as could, to a place I hoped he would never find me." She gave a strangled laugh. "I became school teacher just as I always wanted and in 1921 my child was born." The man want to tell her that was wonderful, but from look in her eyes it was not. "It was only two days later that my baby died from lung fever. I was devastated. Soon after that I threw myself off a cliff. What else did I have to live for if not my child? That was all I could think of. It was like a mantra that repeated over and over in my head. The impact killed me." Her voice trailed off and she kept her eyes away from him. Suicide. What could he possibly say to that? Were there even any words that could offer comfort? He had three children himself when he was in the other realm. The man did not want to imagine the pain he would have felt if had he lost one of them. Just the thought had a lump forming in his throat. He looked over at her. It was tragic what she had gone through, made all the more worse because he knew she would have been a great mother. He saw it in the way she cared for the souls. He wonder if that was why she called herself the Mother. The name really did fit.

They sat in silence, the sky had long since become dark. The wedding party had moved inside for their reception and the laughter he heard almost sounded like it was mocking the woman beside him. His soul grieved for her. Balance wondered if he should confide in her his own past. In the end, he decided against it. They needed to head back soon and he could always tell her another time.

It was two years after she revealed her past that Balance came up with an experiment. He brought it up the next time they saw each other. "I started wondering if we could send energy down our link as a signal to meet. We always end up following it to each other only to find out that one of us is too busy. I figured that maybe we can send a jolt of power similar to what I do with my dementors." He looked at her, trying to gauge her thoughts. She was quiet for a brief moment before nodding, "It's certainly possible." She paused, refining her thoughts and continued, "Though I doubt we'll be able to accomplish anything near what you can do with the dementors. And if we can make this work, then we could use it call each other, if either of us finds others like us."

With that established, their meetings turned to them testing the limits of their link. They had a few hiccups here and there, like when the Mother overcharged her power and almost fried him. Luckily he thought fast and shot his own power back, diminishing the impact a bit. She was completely hysterical afterwards; fretting and crying over him and apologizing again and again. When she acted like that it reminded him of Mrs. Weasley, he even told her so and whenever he did she'd beam at him; happiness exuding from her. It was a only their third meeting after he had finally confessed his past to her and the Mother was always fretting now, afraid he was going to fall into danger with his luck. As the young man thought back to that conversation he felt love swell him. In the end he found himself with another motherly figure. He felt childish because of it. He was how old? Though he still hasn't said anything to her about it, he suspected she saw him in the same way. He knew it was probably the aftermath of being raised by the Dursleys. He had the same relationship with Molly in the other realm too and it only strengthen with the marriage to her daughter. His soul ached thinking of his family, but soared at the thought he was creating a new one.

It was while they were taking a break from their experiment that he divulged his past. They were resting on a bolder near a cliffs edge and their location had him thinking of all he had learned about her. He meant to start it off softly, but his voice came out emotionless and blunt. "I was raised by my Aunt and Uncle." He began. The woman looked at him and waited for what would follow. The man hesitated before continuing. "They despised me because I was different." He averted his gaze from her and instead peered down at the trees below. "They had their own son, Dudley, my cousin. And he holds just as much blame as them for my less than stellar childhood." Balance paused to draw in a breath. Even now after centuries this was still difficult.

"I spent the first eleven years of my life being told that my father was a drunk and killed both himself and my mother in a car accident." He gave a dark chuckle and showed her the scar on his head. "They claimed that I received this scar from it. My Aunt would tell me over and over again that they didn't have to take me in, but they did so in the goodness of their heart." The man jumped slightly as an armed wrapped around his shoulder. He glanced at the Mother and sighed before moving on, "My bedroom was a small cupboard under the stairs and I did all the household chores from as far back as I can remember; cooking, cleaning, and even the gardening." From the corner of his eye he saw her grimace. "The barely fed me and I was punished every time I did better than my cousin at school. Actually I was punished for quite a bit of things. If I burnt their meal or broke something whilst cleaning or if I didn't weed the garden well enough." The Mother suddenly interrupted him, "They beat you, didn't they? You were only a child, how could they?" Her voice was outraged as she spoke. He spoke up quickly with meager platitudes. "No never." He intervened. "Well usually never. My Aunt sometimes struck me with a book to the back of the head if she was supervising while I was cooking and my Uncle would grasp my arm to tightly when throwing me back in the cupboard. It was mostly Dudley and his friends that did the damages, when they chased me down and hit me. A game they called Harry Hunting. Mostly I was punished for the 'freaky' things I did." He glanced at her in reassurance. She didn't look anymore pleased but dropped the subject anyway. "Your name was Harry then?" She questioned instead. The man nodded, continuing. "My name was Harry James Potter and when my eleventh birthday was approaching I received a letter." He paused chuckling amusingly, "Well more like a hundred letters."

And so he told her. He told the woman about the wonder of magic and the hidden darkness under the surface. He confessed his whole life to her and every time she grew angry on his behalf, he felt their connection grow stronger. He gave her an overview on his school life and only skimmed the exterior of the war against Voldemort. It wasn't until he came to his marriage that he began to linger. "She was beautiful." He told her nostalgically. "Her name was Ginevra Molly Weasley, well by then it was Ginevra Molly Potter, nee Weasley. Though she preferred 'Ginny'. Her personality was just as brilliant as her red hair." The man trailed off with a sigh filled with longing. "We had three wonderful children together, two boys and a little girl; James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lilly Luna. They were perfect." Balance glanced over to the woman beside him. She was looking toward to rising sun, smiling gently into the view. The man kept on, telling her of their days in Hogwarts and their jobs after. He smiled himself thinking back to his grandchildren, but soon grew sorrowful at the though of his late wife. "Ginny passed away from a multiple of magical diseases. The healers did their best to make the last of her days full of comfort. It broke me a little when she left." He told the woman regretfully. "I was never the same after, even now a part of me feels missing."

A gentle squeezed to shoulder seemed to say that he wasn't alone anymore. He sent a soft smile towards the Mother. "It was three years latter that I succumbed to my own illness. I was conflicted. While happy to be reunited with my loved ones; I was also distraught to leave some behind." He gave a wet laugh. "Imagine my horror when I was told by the God of Death that not only could I not move on, but I wasn't returning to family either. And now here I am, in a completely different realm just waiting for the promised peace to come." He finished. They sat in silence after that. The Mother absorbing all she had been told and Balance caught in his memories. It would be hours before either moved to go back to their set task and Balance wonder if this silence would become a regular occurrence if the others shared their stories as well. That all depended on if they could find them.

A soft pulse of energy from the link broke him from his thoughts. He responded with his own and followed it back. It had taken them over a year to master the amount of power they needed to use. After that they came up with a code in order to understand what the pulses meant. One pulse meant the other person wanted to meet, while two meant that they were too busy. The last signal was three pulses and it was for emergencies only. They were both quite proud of what they managed to accomplish. When Balance finally arrived where he was being pulled to, his mouth dropped in shock at the sight that greeted him.

After a decade of searching, it seemed the Mother had found another soul like them. Balance was slightly annoyed that she found another so easily. After all, it had taken him ages to find her. "Balance, allow me to introduce Heart. I ran into him while taking a walk in the woods." The woman explained and motion for him to join them. "While waiting for you I explained to him what both of us do here in this realm." Balance approached the duo and carefully observed their new companion. He physically appeared to be around the Mother's age, perhaps slightly younger. The other man had blonde hair and dark blue eyes. And, he noticed with a hint of irritation that this man was taller than him.

"Hello Balance." The other man greeted. "As the Mother said, I go by the name Heart as I am the heart of the souls." He continued with a soft chuckle. Balance gave him an inquisitive look, was the man claiming to be the Cupid of this ream? But before Heart could resume, the Mother cleared her throat and they looked at her. She gesture towards the path with her head and raised one eyebrow at both of them. Balance snorted and began walking. He had to hide a smile when she began to hum lightly, glancing back at the taller man he waited for him to go on.

"I think of myself as the heart of the souls, because I bring souls together with bonds. For instance, souls that have the same family receive a relation bond and souls that give off similar energy are given a soul bond. With that comes breaking the bonds. If the bond between souls becomes warped or twisted I sever it." He explained. "If I were to leave a twisted bond intact it could end up tainting the soul." Heart grimaced as he added that. Balance found himself agreeing with him. A tainted soul was bad news. It could give off dark energy and taint other souls around it.

"I can see that weighing someone down. We can't all be everywhere at once, so you shouldn't worry about it too much. We all have our own burdens to bear." Balance consoled him. He had ferried tainted souls before. And these were the ones that never returned from the Void of Judgement. He himself missed certain things from souls or it might be better to say neglected them. It was a few decades before he met the Mother that he grew restless. In a moment of stupidity he ignored the soul energy emitting from the Ancient Void and let it grow in power to the point that the Void started cracking. As Lord Death had tied his soul to it, he was wracked to the ground with pain. It was good thing he had the dementors. They flocked to him when they felt his agony over the bond. Unable to stand they dragged him out of the realm. And the moment he entered the Void, his powers erupted from him and began to filter out souls. He was not in control and it sent souls that he was still forging into the realm. He could feel them shatter, they didn't have enough energy to withstand the physical realm yet. The shock of of losing the developing souls and the bonds that snapped with them had him falling into unconsciousness. He doesn't know how long he was laying motionless in the Void before he woke up. The crack was gone so he assumed his powers mended it. That was the last and only time he was dismissive of his responsibilities.

He found it odd that when he was alone in this realm for so long, that he managed to make his own makeshift family. He had gain a father figure from Heart. Now, the taller man was nothing like Sirius, but he still gave off a parental feeling. Heart had to be the most compassionate soul in both realms. It was true that Balance and the Mother had been wary of him after learning his past, but who could blame them? The man had worked to help his hunt and destroy witches, werewolves, and vampires in the name of the church. While Heart was not as enthusiastic as his father, the fact remained that he did his part. He managed to gain Balance's trust after three years of them meeting, when Balance tested him by explaining his own past. It was seeing Heart cry for him and the ones who were killed by him, his father, and his father's men; that led to where they are now. Seeing this the Mother warmed up to Heart as well, feeling safe with knowledge no rifts would form between her and Balance. It was a month later, that the Mother began teaching the other man how to use the links they formed after their first meeting.

Though he tried, Balance was unable to restrain the smirk that took over his face. He watched from the sidelines as the Mother and Heart seemed to click together. Oh, he knew they were only friends, there wasn't enough time to develop anything else with how busy they were. He doubted there ever would be. Though it was hard to ignore the lingering looks and secretive smiles they shared. Seeing them like this made him think that perhaps, in another life, they would have been perfect for each other. He once asked the Mother if she would try to pursue it anyway. "If we had met under different circumstances then I certainly would have." She told him. "As it is, we just don't have the time and with our main focus on the souls, we wouldn't have the dedication to support a relationship." She continued. He conceded that she was right. Yet, he couldn't help but imagine how it would have been if all three of them had met in the other realm first instead of this one. It was impossible with the large gap between when the were born, but the thought still had him yearning for the lost opportunities.