Golden Soul

for SlytherinLovesAGryffindor

Upon entering the wizarding world, Hermione had been thrown into the deep end of an ocean of knowledge she had previously thought of as fictional and impossible. At the top of that list was the concept of soulmates. Her first week at Hogwarts she had been pulled aside with all the other muggleborns and muggle raised half bloods and been subjected to a lecture about the existence of soulmates in the wizarding communities across the globe. On each witch's or wizard's seventeenth birthday their soulmate mark would appear on the inside of their left wrist. The person bearing the exact match was their soulmate, chosen by magic itself to be their perfect compliment. Finding one's soulmate was rare though. Most times they would never end up meeting and could be across the world from one another.

During her sixth year, she waited eagerly for the time of her birth to arrive so she could see what her marking would be. Once it appeared, she began to pay closer attention to her classmates in the unlikely case that one of them was her match. Not seeing a glimpse of any markings resembling her own, she put the possibility of them being around her age and in Britain out of her head. The impending war needed to be her primary focus anyway.

Over a year later, Malfoy burst into the Room of Requirement with Crabbe and Goyle attempting to catch them and, she assumed, hand them over to Voldemort. Once Crabbe had cast and lost control of his Fiendfyre, the six teens' sole focus became making it out of the room alive. Draco jumped onto the broom behind Harry, and Crabbe narrowly fit himself behind Ron. Goyle looked at her desperately as she approached him and leapt onto her broom, his arms steady around her own as they gripped the broom shaft just below her smaller hands, taking over the task of flying.

They tumbled from the broom as the door slammed closed behind them, the smoke of the dark fire's consuming path the only scent they could recognize. Goyle wrapped himself around her small frame as they fell, taking most of the impact as they hit the stone floor and grunting at her added weight pressing him down.

She quickly scrambled off him, the sleeve of her shirt rising just enough to reveal her soulmark. Goyle stared at it silently before locking eyes with her as he rolled up his left sleeve. There, just below the hideous smudge of his Dark Mark, was the matching golden scar-like symbol to her own.

Hermione felt like her lungs had collapsed as the information registered in her brain. A Death Eater. Her magic had chosen a Death Eater as her soulmate. She swayed unsteadily on her feet and he caught her, pulling her body to his before she could hit the floor.

Her hands fisted in his school jumper and she tried to find some logical reasoning for what was happening. Filtering through her shock came a low, urgent voice. He was speaking and she needed to pay attention.

"Survive, Hermione. Survive so I can explain myself and beg for the chance to show you who I really am. Magic doesn't lie; it can't lie. Don't discount this until you know all the facts." He pressed a swift kiss to her crown and whispered, "Now go, little vixen. Run. I'll find you when the dust settles," and then he was gone, leaving her to sink to the floor as spells flew over her head. Harry slammed to his knees in front of her and shook her until she focused on him.

"Get up Hermione! Get up and fight!"

His words reminded her of Goyle's plea for her to survive and she shot to her feet. She didn't trust him one bit, but she had every intention of seeing the morning just so she could have the satisfaction of hexing her supposed soulmate herself.

Hours later, after their hard won victory, she spotted him leaving the grounds of the school. She ran after him, knowing he had answers that she needed to hear. He was heading into the Forbidden Forest and she followed without hesitation. Nothing there was scarier than what she had just endured.

"Goyle!" She shouted at him, her temper flaring when he didn't stop or turn to even acknowledge that he'd heard her. She raised her wand and cast a tripping jinx at him, pleased when she hit her mark and sent him tumbling to the ground. Marching over to him she glared down at his face and hissed, "Gregory Goyle, you promised me answers!"

His gentle smile was infuriating and she resisted the urge to childishly stomp her foot.

"Witch if you want answers you can either join me down here on the ground or allow me the room to get up. There's a clearing not too far from here where we can talk more privately." He said, his voice calm.

She growled before moving just far enough away for him to get to his feet, her wand never wavering away from him.

"Come on little vixen. I know you want your answers, and you deserve them."

He turned his back on her and began walking away, and she muttered under her breath as she followed him deeper into the forest. Moments later, just as he promised, they entered a clearing where he took a seat on a fallen log, patting the space beside him in invitation.

"Why do you call me that?" She asked, and he laughed.

"I call you a vixen because that is who you are, Hermione. You are fierce, cunning, and loyal. The ones you love know you will protect them. Not to mention you're sexy as hell when you get all spun up about something."

Hermione didn't know what to say to that, so instead she asked, "Why did you join Voldemort? I mean you've been running after Malfoy since our first year, which I assume is part of why, but I want to know the rest of it."

Goyle shook his head, rolling his left sleeve up again so she could see the two marks side by side on his arm.

"When I turned seventeen and my soulmark appeared, my first thought about my soulmate wasn't about her blood status. The first thing I thought was I hope she is understanding and kind. I knew there was the possibility of her being half blood or muggleborn, and if she was I prayed to every God I could think of that she wouldn't judge me for my choices.

"I was marked during Christmas in our sixth year. I didn't choose it for myself, my father had promised my service to the Dark Lord from the moment I was born. Draco's story is similar, but he was marked early as a way for the Dark Lord to punish Mr. Malfoy."

His voice was low and she could hear the shame in his tone, but she wasn't sure where it stemmed from. She quietly sat next to him as he continued.

"I know I'm not brilliant, Hermione, but I'm not so thick that I missed how horrible He was to everyone; not just the muggleborns. If you made him angry, it didn't matter how pure your blood was. The Crucio from his wand was just as vicious in anger as it was when he tortured prisoners for his own pleasure.

"I wasn't strong enough to tell my father to shove off. But the raids and the revels… I came home and would scrub my skin until it was raw just so I could feel human again. Coming back to school was just a different side of the same nightmare."

He dragged his hands down his face and let his head hang down. Hermione reached out and gently ran a hand up and down his back, unable to resist the need to comfort him. His body shuddered underneath her hand and she realised he was crying. Standing up she moved in front of him and gently carded her fingers through his hair as she continued to rub comforting circles across his shoulders. He buried his face in her stomach, his hands coming up to hold onto her jacket and she let him cry.

She couldn't say how long they stayed like that, but eventually he raised his head and looked up at her. His red rimmed eyes pleaded with her to understand and she moved his hair away from his face. He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her mark and her magic sang at the contact. She knew at that moment that even if he was sentenced to time in Azkaban for what he'd been forced to do, she would wait for him. Magic never lied.

Using her left hand to cup his cheek, she turned his face back to hers and leaned down to press her forehead against his.

"I don't know why magic put us together. But you were right, it doesn't lie. I believe you, Goyle."

"Greg." He begged, his voice rough. "Please, call me Greg."

"Greg." She whispered, pressing a tentative kiss to his lips and quickly pulling back.

He surged forward and captured her lips, holding her impossibly close and encouraging her to climb onto his lap. She straddled him, knees digging into the rough bark of the log beneath them as her hands cradled the back of his head.

He kissed her like a man possessed, the sense of their inevitable separation making him skip past a gentle first kiss and dive into the effort of making her breathless. Hermione was grateful for that in a way. She knew the aurors would be looking for him, if they weren't already, and it was only a matter of time before they were found. Her tongue tangled with his and she sank into her senses, trying to memorise the taste of him and the feel of his body pressed against her, all the while her magic singing in chorus at her acceptance of him.

All too soon they pulled back from each other, the need for air forcing them apart. She leaned forward and kissed him one more time, wishing they hadn't been pitted against each other in a war that they should never have been involved in as children.

"I'll wait for you. Wait, write, visit, I'll be there no matter what." She promised and he hugged her, burying his face in her neck.

That was how the aurors found them minutes later, clinging to each other. Hermione ensured that each one saw their soulmarks, pinning them with a serious look that promised pain if Greg wasn't treated respectfully. She knew in the coming days she would be lauded for helping Harry and she'd be damned if she didn't use that influence to make her soulmate's life as easy as she could while he was held and tried for his actions as a Death Eater.

The aurors had the decency to let the couple walk to the edge of the forest together and share a final embrace before they placed him in suppression cuffs and took him from her. Then when she parted ways with them and returned to Harry and Ron, she refused to answer their unending questions about where she'd disappeared to.


"Kings, what are you doing about the students who were marked?"

Kingsley had been made Minister a week after the final battle and she was in his office the morning after he was sworn in, going over laws to ensure that everyone arrested would get a fair trial.

He shook his head at the question. "Honestly, Hermione, I don't know. If any of them were under seventeen then they have a stronger case, but if they were of age…" he trailed off and she grimaced.

"And if they were under duress when they were marked?" She bit out, ever more frustrated at the laws of the wizarding community.

"Can they prove it? So many claimed the Imperious the first time around, how are we supposed to trust any of them to be honest?"

Hermione grumbled under her breath. Finally she looked at him and said, "What if I vouch for them? One specifically and you released him into my custody. What then?"

"On what basis would you have a strong enough claim over him that he could be remanded to your custody?" Kingsley questioned.

Pulling up her sleeve she revealed her soulmark and said, "He's my soulmate, Kings. I won't have him languishing in Azkaban when he can be safe and well taken care of with me. If you want any of the men and women you arrested to be able to attend trial and be sane, you'll fix that Merlin forsaken island or better yet find other places to hold them until their trials can begin until the prison is rebuilt completely from the ground up."

Kingsley sighed and pulled a sheet of parchment towards him, asking, "Who is he? We'll need to verify the markings with his intake records."

"Gregory Goyle."

"Harry and Ron won't like it." he said as he wrote out the order for her to take full custody of Greg after his mark was deemed legitimate.

"I don't give a flying fuck whether they like it or not. They each have soulmates of their own to go find and I won't be judging them for whoever that turns out to be. Greg is mine and whether or not they accept that, it won't change the facts."

Kingsley stamped the release order with the Minister's Seal and handed it over to her.

"Go get him. I don't want you in here giving me more of a headache than this fucked up place already does."

He smiled at her and she promised she'd be back to continue helping him with the reformation of the government the minute he asked. He told her he'd floo the warden at the prison and warn them she was on her way and she grinned, running from his office to the apparition point.

She landed on the dock where the boat was waiting to take visitors across and climbed in, mentally urging the craft to go faster. She leapt onto the dock at Azkaban and marched in, fully expecting resistance from the Aurors stationed there and ready to fight for her wizard's release.

She was immediately taken to the Warden's office where he spared a glance for the order in her hand before calling for a junior auror to take her up to the level where the Death Eaters were being held.

The ride up the elevator was silent, and when the door opened she left her escort behind, quickly walking down the hall and scanning the faces peering at her through the bars of the cell doors. She found him bunked with Draco Malfoy about halfway down the corridor.

"Granger, what brings you to our corner of hell?" Malfoy asked and Greg's head shot up from his bunk.

"I'm here for Goyle. He's been released to my custody on the Minister's orders." She said, smiling at her wizard who was staring at her in shock.

At Malfoy's confused look she tapped her left wrist and then pointedly looked at Greg and the blond's eyes grew wide.

Greg scrambled to his feet and as the door swung open she stepped through and into his waiting arms.

"You're actually here." He murmured in her ear as he clung to her.

"Yes, now let's get you out of here." She replied.

Turning to look at Malfoy, she quietly said, "Harry and I have both agreed to speak as witnesses at your trial. You didn't want this war any more than we did Malfoy. We were all scared kids who shouldn't ever have been forced to choose a side."

She took Greg's hand and left Malfoy sitting on his bed in shock. When the couple reached the mainland, he crushed her to him again and she wrapped her arms around him.

"Ready to go home?" She asked after a moment and she felt him nod.

"As long as I'm with you, I'm home." He said and she hugged him a little tighter before apparating them away to her parent's home in Hampstead. She couldn't agree with him more.