Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There's also references to canon things such as child abuse and friends not being really good at that. Oh, and a bit of 'friendzone' feels and racism from Ron. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: This did not go the direction that I thought it would.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Gryffindor MC (x5); Setting Sail; Ship Sails; Hold the Mayo; Ethnic & Present (x2); Rian-Russo Inversion (x3); Lunar Era; Old Shoes (Y); Bucket Listing (Y); Short Jog; Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 04
Subject (Task No.): Ritual & Ceremonial Magic (Task#2: ALT Write a Soulmate AU.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [17](Neville Longbottom); 365 Prompts [187](Ron Weasley); Scavenger Hunt [25](Asexual Character); Days of the Year [Jan 3rd](Three linked events); Sytherin OTPs [09](Lavender/Parvati); But Can You Spell It? [U](Understand); Stop! Hamper Time (Cakes)[Blueberry Muffins](Illusion); You Get My Love (Love Languages)[01]("...best thing..."); Would You Rather (19)[Tri-Wizard Tournament]; Fantasy February (14)[Soulmate AU];
Other MC4A Challenges: Ship (Heroes)[Su Med 1](Words of Affirmation); Fire [Hard](Who's Your Family); Chim [Karma](Gender Bend; Copper); Hangman [06](n/a);
Representation(s): Desi & Fem Harry Potter/Neville Longbottom; Found Family
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Sweetest Burn; Misshapen Pods; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Found Family); Chorus (Wabi Sabi)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: Hose (n/a)
Word Count: 2032 words

(^^)
Keep Cover
(^^)

Harini didn't have a soul mark like most people did. She might have had one at some point. Or at least she has the feeling that she might have. There was a thick scar on her forearm where her soulmate's name would have been. Its angry pink color stood out against the sienna brown of her skin, despite how the scar had been there for as long as she could remember, just like the jagged lightning bolt on the center of her forehead.

Aunt Petunia had once told nosy Mrs. Number Five that she had gotten both scars the night her parents had died. She had whispered the words as if the information was the most shameful of secrets. But when she had glanced towards the kitchen doorway where Harini had been standing, her pale eyes had glittered with the same malicious pleasure she always had when she delivered the punishments which hurt the most.

She had known better than to ask for more details.

At a certain age, it became scandalous to not cover one's soul mark. After all, it was one thing for a child to run around with such a private part of themself exposed but another thing entirely for a growing adult to do so. In the UK, that age was typically the time they transitioned between primary school and secondary school. A formal mark band was standard for secondary school uniforms, especially the fancy public schools like Eton or Smeltings. Stonewall High, the local state school, only required the mark to be covered.

Aunt Petunia got her a old sports band from the donation bin at the church that the Dursleys attended every Christmas and Easter. It might have been black once upon a time, but many washings had faded it to a smokey gray. It felt scratchy and smelled sweaty, no matter how many times it was washed.

Harini hated it.

It was the only part of the Stonewall High uniform which went with Harini to Hogwarts.

Just like in the Muggle world, showing one's soul mark was considered inappropriate in the wizarding world. Harini was still a little shocked when two of the girls in her year squealed when introductions went around during the welcoming feast. They apparently had each other's names. She smiled at their display of happiness about having found their match even as she absently rubbed the band over her scar.

A part of her yearned for that, despite knowing that it wasn't likely for her. At best, all Harini would get was to fall in love with someone who hadn't met their soulmate yet. And Harini would understand when they left her for their soulmate. No one should be burdened with a freak, and Harini knew that was what she was. The Dursleys had made certain that she had no illusion about what she was, after all.

Ron sighed unhappily beside her. Then he bumped her side. She gave him a small smile, pleased that even if she wouldn't have a soulmate, she had already made a friend in the boy. That would just have to be enough for her.

(^^)

Harini stared out at the bit of the Black Lake that ran under Hogwarts, mulling over how her life had been ruined so quickly. She hadn't put her name into that stupid cup. She hadn't even wanted to! She was looking forward to having a nice and quiet year for once. She wouldn't have done anything to jeopardize that.

Not that it mattered to Ron and Hermione.

Ron made a bit of sense, because they had done a lot of things together over the years and he seemed to be upset that she had left him out this time. Harini could understand why he was upset if she had actually been the one to subvert the protections on the cup. But he wouldn't listen to how she hadn't left him out of her plotting because she hadn't plotted anything.

Hermione's behavior didn't make sense, except in all the ways that it did. Hermione didn't like when Harini didn't conform to her expectations. She never had. Most of the time, if Harini did well on her schoolwork (but not better than Hermione) and didn't do the girly stuff that Lavender and Parvati liked, then Harini would be fine.

It was this weird balancing act that Harini still hadn't figured out. She had once overheard a seventh-year girl muttering angrily to another seventh-year girl about Hermione and performative feminism, but Harini hadn't recognized the term and had been too worried about having been caught eavesdropping to even think about asking. All Harini really understood was that Hermione had a lot of opinions that would upset Aunt Petunia and Aunt Marge yet at the same time, Harini had to treat those opinions just like how she had to treat Aunt Petunia and Aunt Marge's opinion.

And somehow, by getting chosen as a champion for the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Harini had failed to meet whatever expectations Hermione had had for her. Appearing to have broken the rules probably didn't help any. Hermione had a weird relationship with rules and authority figures. It made even less sense to Harini than anything else about Hermione.

Harini shifted so that she could wrap her arms around her legs and rest her chin on her bent knees. Her thoughts drifted to her other roommates. Lavender and Parvati had started getting very noisy for a while after they went to bed. Or maybe it was just that Harini had the bed closest to their beds. They had started pushing their beds together late last year. It was probably to give them more room since they slept together more nights than not before that and now was doing it every night.

She swallowed around the lump of familiar longing caught in her throat. Being able to curl up next to someone would be nice, she thought. It would definitely warmer during the winter. What would it be like to fall asleep next to another person? To know that they would be there in the morning? Or in the middle of the night in the case of nightmares?

She knew that it wasn't something that she would ever have, because even among wixen, she was a freak, but oh, how she wanted that. Maybe not the noisy bits that Lavender and Parvati had started this term, but the rest of it seemed even better than it had back in their first year when the two soulmates had recognized each other.

Harini rubbed at the scar over the place where her soulmate's name would be, if she had one.

She just wished that things were different than they were, as foolish as that hope was.

(^^)

"I hope you don't plan on doing something like that," Ron said after catching her watching Parvati decorating Lavender's arms with a darker paste than she had used on her own hands. It was still a couple of weeks until the Yule Ball, but for the last couple of days, the two soulmates had been spending a couple of hours applying the decorations to sections of each other's body. Harini was fairly certain that they would be forced to move the activity to the dorm starting tomorrow, because this was the last of bits that were acceptable to reveal in public. None of that explained Ron's comment, however.

They had made up after the First Task. Ron had realized how dangerous the tournament was and decided that Harini needed all the help she could get. But he hadn't apologized for not letting her explain or for getting mad at her over something she hadn't done. It made Harini feel awkward around him because she was waiting for him to get angry again.

"What do you mean?" she asked when it became clear that Ron wasn't going to explain on his own.

"That," he answered, waving a hand in the direction of Lavender and Parvati. "We're not like them, you know. We're opening the Ball. It would look weird if we were all covered in squiggles."

She felt her brow crinkle as she tried to process that.

"We're not opening the Ball," she said slowly. They had discussed how all of the champions were expected to have dates for that purpose, but Harini didn't know where Ron had gotten the impression that he was going to be a part of that. Especially after the way that Fleur had turned him down flat.

"Oh, did McGonagall let you off the hook then?" Ron asked. Strangely, he looked relieved at the idea. "I'm glad. I wasn't looking forward to being the center of attention like that." He looked over at her. Harini didn't know what her face was doing but whatever it was, it made Ron rush on like he was reassuring her. "Not that I don't think we'll have a good time anyway. Because we will! Just wait and see!"

"I don't understand," Harini admitted. There was no way that she was going to figure this out on her own. "We're not going to the Yule Ball together."

"Of course we are," Ron protested as his face flushed with either embarrassment or anger. It was always a bit hard to tell with him. "Who else would you go with? Neville?"

"Maybe I will ask him," Harini declared in a flash of irritation. "At least I will actually ask him rather than assuming!"

Then she spotted Neville exiting the stairwell that led up to the boys dorms. She stood up and marched over to him with a determination that she usually only had when facing down life or death situation. Neville spotted her right away and looked like he was resigning himself to being murdered or something equally unpleasant. On a whim, she pressed into his personal space and kissed his cheek before stepping back a respectful amount.

"Will you go to the ball with me?" she asked, suddenly feeling nervous. Neville looked like she had just whacked him with a stick. She bit her bottom lip as she rubbed the scar on her arm through the sleeve of her robes and the sports band beneath that. After a moment of silence, she swallowed down bile and decided to continue. "You don't have to, if you don't want. I mean, I know it's kind of late notice, and you probably have someone that you're taking already. Actually, I shouldn't have asked. It was stupid. Can we just forget this?"

"Yes," Neville blurted out, loud enough that the chatter from the rest of the common room dipped. Neville looked flustered. "Not to that last bit, unless that's what you want, but to the first part, if you haven't really changed your mind. I would love to escort you to the ball. I just thought—well, you've ignored our connection, so I figured that you didn't want anything to do with me."

"Our connection?" Harini asked. Neville licked his lips before raising his arm. He pulled up his sleeve to reveal the copper cuff that covered his soul mark. With determined motions, he unhooked it, revealing Harini's name written the same way she wrote with a stylus. Her hand shook as she touched it lightly with her fingers.

Harini felt like she was going to shatter into a billion pieces as she pushed up her own sleeve and removed her band. The scar looked particularly pink as it tingled at the exposure. Neville made a hurt sound even as he reached to echo the gentle way she had touched his soul mark.

"It's been like that for as long as I can remember," she whispered. "I wasn't even certain that I had a soulmate waiting for me. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Neville told her without any hint of hesitation. "Do not ever be sorry for someone else hurting you. Not when you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"You are, too," she returned. Emboldened by their mutual discovery, she threw her arms around his chest in a desperate hug. After only a beat of stiffness, Neville wrapped his own around her.

It was the best hug she had ever had.