Published: 27/01/2018

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"Talking / Talking (flashback)"
'Thoughts / Thoughts (flashback)'
"Spanish / French / Italian / Russian / etc."
- Flashback -
(**Author's Note)

Author's Note: Sorry for the long hiatus dear readers, but I've been busy. With my current muse Love of Flowers, and some personal business, I haven't had time to work on this chapter. Plus, with all the feedback I got from the last one, I had some serious editing and revising to do. So, I've tried to slow the pace down, starting with Chapter 6. I am also using this chapter to answer a few of the questions that were asked in the reviews.

I do not own Harry Potter or Katekyo Hitman Reborn, only the idea for this story.

Chapter 6

The next morning, Skull found himself waking up to the smell of eggs and bacon. Stumbling out of the unfamiliar room, he walked towards where the smell was coming from and found the same girl he met yesterday in the kitchen cooking breakfast. The smell wasn't the only distraction, she was wearing her pyjamas; a pale green nightshirt that hung off one shoulder covering a short black pair of women's boxers.

Iris, hearing footsteps behind her, turned around, "Good morning Skull."

"'Morning" he said shyly, "Do you need any help?" he asked.

Iris looked over, "Could you get three plates down? They're in the third cupboard above the sink."

Skull went to the cupboard as directed and grabbed the plates, placing them down, he was curious about who would have the third plate and asked.

Iris just said one word, "Hedwig"

As if by magic (pun intended), a beautiful snowy owl flew in from the opened window and perched on the table where the third plate was. Iris walked over with breakfast and placed some bacon on the owl's plate before serving eggs and the rest of the bacon for them. Turning towards Skull, Iris decided to explain some things to him.

"This," she said, indicating the owl, "Is Hedwig, she was given to me by a close friend when I was 11 and she has been my oldest and closest friend since. She's a very big mother hen and loves bacon, so if you try to separate her from bacon, she will viciously attack you." She also remembered something, "I'm sorry we didn't introduce ourselves earlier. I'm Iris, Iris Potter. It's nice to finally meet you Skull." she said.

"It's great to meet you too Iris." Skull said excitedly

"I'm sorry about how sudden this was for you," Iris said, "I didn't have the best childhood growing up either, and I saw many of my classmates finding their soulmates. I guess I just wanted to find my other halves so badly I just instantly latched on."

In her entire life, Iris has always felt intense emotions build up whenever the situation. Anger, happiness, fear, regret, and sadness, among others. But nothing compared to the one emotion she hid from everyone, even her friends and former guardians. (**AN: see Chapter 1)

Jealousy

She was jealous of how much love Dudley had gotten as a child, and how envious and angry she felt when Ron complained about his family ('Didn't he know how much she would kill to have a family?'), but most of all, she was jealousy of how others have found their soulmates and not her.

She saw it when Granger and Weasley ('Traitors') first met each other, how close they were even after the Goblet incident. How her aunt and uncle interacted when ever close together, and even her former guardians found their other half ('Luna and Neville, but Fred never found his,' she thought). She watched all of this with burning eyes the colour of envy, wishing for once to meet her other half or halves. If she ever found them, she would gladly give them her heart in return for theirs. To for once, feel the raw emotions and comfort that was shared between soulmates was the one thing she desired, and will soon achieve.

"I can relate, some of my foster families and even several of the circus troupe found theirs, but I always wanted to find mine," he said as he finished his eggs, "If I ever found my soulmate, I promised myself that they would be treated with more love and kindness than I was given in my life, and now I did." he finished as he looked at Iris with sincere happiness.

Then he remembered something she said earlier, "By the way, what did you mean when you said, 'other halves'?" he said as he looked at Iris questioningly.

Iris sighed, she had a feeling he would ask this, "Someone once said life grants us a gift at the end of our suffering. We both suffered our own personal pains, and were granted our greatest desires. But just one difference…"

"I wasn't just born with one mark," she said as she lifted her sleeve, revealing two marks on her other arm, "I was born with six."

Skull recognized the purple one as his by the familiar words, and saw that the other one was a vivid red. He also noticed four more; one on her back, another on her shoulder, a third on her other arm, and the last one was on her hip, partially covered, all in different colours.

Skull had to admit, the sight of more than one soulmate mark shocked him, and even hurt him. He had just found his soulmate only to find out she had others. It was like a blow to him, because when you had more than one soulmate, it was like being a parent to multiple children; each one needed equal love and attention, but if one child had more attention it would make the other children jealous.

But Iris seemed like the type to easily juggle the thought of multiple soulmates without a problem. The way she went at the stupid ringmaster and the boss also showed she was not a pushover or scared to fight back for someone who couldn't. It made Skull happy that even if she met the others, she would never allow anyone to hurt or belittle him because he appeared weak. If she ever met the others, he hoped they could all get along.

That's when he noticed the scars. They were on every visible surface of his soulmate's skin, some were silver meaning they were old, while others were varied in shades of red, meaning they were formed recently. Anger and horror swelled within him at the sight of those scars, at the thought of someone or something had hurt his soulmate.

"Who hurt you?" he said to Iris, eyes focused on one scar that looked like a puncture mark.

Iris looked at the scar, lightly tracing it as she answered him, "I was attacked by a giant snake when I was twelve, a girl I knew went missing at my school, so me and some friends went to find her, including her twin older brothers. The snake was very venomous, but I had some anti-venom on hand, and it only left a scar." she said, pointing down at the puncture wound.

Skull was disturbed, a venomous snake had attacked his soulmate when she went looking for her friends' sister. From the sound of it, no adults went looking for the girl when she first went missing, only a group of children went to find her, and they let a snake that dangerous into a school. Skull privately wondered what kind of school did Iris went to, to allow these things to happen.

"I hope I don't have to tell you to be more careful." Skull said after calming himself down.

"I've learned to be more careful, can't let my soulmate get any grey hairs." she said with a laugh.

"Thank God." was the only reply as Skull sighed in relief, Iris laughed at his answer.

As they continued to eat breakfast, Iris silently traced the familiar writing over on her arm, noticing out of the corner of her eye how Skull silently shivered in pleasure. The thought of having a soulmate or soulmates, never crossed Iris' mind while she was at school or when she was in hiding. But on some nights, when she was stressed, she would sometimes trace the words her soulmates would say when they'd meet. When she first seen her soul marks, Iris thought she was a freak for having more than one mark; but over time, Iris started to love them, using them as her strength to keep living. She had always hoped that her soulmates would all love her as much as she did them.

She could only hope.

Author's Note: I did say I wasn't going to abandon this story, but it will take some time to re-organize it and get myself back on track now with two progressing stories on the go. I'd love some good reviews and suggestions to help me move this story along.