Holly pressed her nails painfully into her palms, watched the white of her knuckles and the accursed blood quill scar change color; then she released her grip a moment before she drew blood.

Nearby was a ticking clock, tic-tic-ticking away. Hermione's quill tapped her parchment, then the feather entered her mouth as she gnawed at the end. A chess piece hit the table as Ron attempted to play a game by himself, but couldn't keep the concentration for a proper match. As it was, not one of them was really focusing on anything in that room.

Holly could easily call this her worst year yet. She'd been plagued by annoying and noticeable dreams sent to her by Voldemort all year. Most of them featured the door in the department of mysteries, the same door that held the prophecy she wasn't allowed to know the full words of. The others involved meetings with his Death Eaters and the rare one involving Nagini and Mister Weasley.

She still didn't understand what the bloody hell the Order was thinking protecting the damn prophecy with civilians. They really ought to have destroyed it and left a trap for the man who would eventually have to go get the orb himself instead of putting civilians in front of it to guard it against Voldemort. It was a damned miracle no one had died yet Holly reasoned, and that was entirely because of her accidentally reading Nagini's memories; which considering the prophecy and her connection to Voldemort, was very suspicious.

Regardless when Holly had been yanked into a vision of Sirius' capture in that stupid prophecy room during her History exam - which she was now going to fail - Holly had assumed quickly that it had been a fake and had checked just in case. She'd done the smart thing, she'd used the mirror Sirius had given her for her birthday to contact him.

It was hardly been the first time she'd done so over the year; actually, Holly had been calling Sirius with it every week to discuss the journal he'd given her, which had been an exciting read. It had been about a kunoichi, a female ninja, that had left her war torn home country to come to Earth. She'd described the difficulty of learning the customs, the language, and the technology of her new world. She'd also expressed her building relationship between herself and the man that had kept her alive through countless battles and the difficult process it had been to get the Black's to accept it. Apparently, it had helped that she had something called 'chakra' which the Black's had considered a fascinating type of magic to bring into the family, even if it hadn't been passed to her children.

Regardless, Sirius had been just fine but alarmed at the information she was giving him. He'd then passed it to the Order and Dumbledore who had been hiding out at Grimmauld place. He'd snuck her into that meeting through the mirror stuffed in his shirt pocket; Holly, Ron, and Hermione had listened in as they planned to intercept the death eaters likely waiting to trap her. Tonks would be acting as 'Holly,' and the rest would accompany her.

Since then, Holly, Hermione, and Ron had been sitting in the common room waiting for news. Holly could admit that she was panicking internally. Her godfather, the man who had blood adopted her, her dad, was fighting death eaters that very moment and there was nothing she could do to help.

It seemed she was either too young, too important, or too weak to do anything. Holly was kept ignorant and in the dark, and if not for Sirius she probably would have gone running to the ministry out of sheer curiosity alone. Holly hated it, hated it as she thought of her soul-mate who was always fighting and doing, while she sat on her ass while Voldemort was out there killing people.

"I can't just sit here!" Ron yelled suddenly, he was the first to crack among them; a large portion of his family had gone to the battle.

"You'll have to," Hermione commented suddenly reaching up into the air and hitting something invisible to them, an option for her soulmate no doubt. "We can't apparate so we can't join the battle, we would have had to leave hours ago by broom if we wanted to go."

"What about the floo?"

"Guarded by Umbridge," She made a face, "I cannot believe that woman is still here."

What if her father died? What if Sirius didn't come back to her? What if she lost the one person who actually understood her, who loved her unconditionally. Holly hadn't even told him she liked girls yet, she'd been too scared, and now he could be dead.

"Ugh, the toad! Honestly, if she's here again next year, I'm transferring. When is that curse going to kick in?"

She'd just tell him when he got back… no, she couldn't just blurt it out! She'd have to plan something-

"Ah!" Holly doubled over as her head screamed in pain. Crying out, she grabbed at the scar and whimpered.

Holly didn't notice when Ron knocked over the table in a rush to reach her, or when he tripped over Hermione doing the same, causing them to hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. She was too focused at her scar ripping open causing blood to pour over her face and hands as a vision hit her-

She was in Voldemort's head, in his eyes as he stood face to face with Dumbledore. She twisted her wand in the air causing the glass of the windows nearby to shatter and hurl toward that fool old man. Fire twisted as she transformed pure magic into a draconic beast that blew fire. Water twisted up, encircling her mortal enemy and was furious when he escaped instead of drowned. Ancient magic was at her fingertips following her every command. She was power, she was a god of magic, she was-

Sirius entered her vision, spell to spell he fought Bellatrix near a veil of death that whispered at her, called to her- back and forth they went- a red light struck Sirius, and he teetered toward the curtain-

Holly split from Voldemort as terror burst through her heart. Voldemort's red eyes flashed green, his wand lifted pointed away from Dumbledore who stopped dead in horror seeing the color change. A spell slammed into Sirius' side sending him careening away from the veil and toward Remus. They smacked together rolling across the ground as Voldemort wrenched back his control and turning it on her.

Then all Holly felt was agony.

'Help me, help me, please help me! it hurts- the pain-'

Nami patted down the dirt in the tangerine field and sat back on her heels. She was getting there, she was so very close to buying her town and finally freeing the people. Soon she would be free of Arlong, and she'd be able to make her own maps, explore the world, and maybe- just maybe, she'd find her soulmate, if her soulmate lived that long.

Her latest trip had been the best haul yet. Abandoning her habit of doing good deeds for a month she'd had an extra thirty days to steal, and it showed in gold, and emotions

Nojiko could tell at a single look that Nami was suffering because of her choice. She'd tried to encourage her sister to stop, to find another way, but Nami was deaf to her pleas and deaf to her soulmate. She had a single-minded focus and had convinced herself that the freedom of the village would fix everything. Nojiko didn't have the heart to tell her that the likelihood of Nami's deal succeeding was nonexistent. No pirate would honor such a deal even if Nami earned all the money in the world.

"Nami!" She glanced to the side to see Nojiko waving from the house and took a deep breath.

"Coming!" Nami called with forced happiness. Nami pushed herself up, taking one look at the treasure she'd sacrificed her soulmate for and grimaced. She'd stopped looking at her options, stopped looking to see what her soulmate was suffering. Nami had stopped looking at her points entirely.

It was for the best she told herself.

Her soulmate was better off anyway.

'Please, please- hel-help-Help?HELPHELPHELP.'

"So I bought another big hint," Hermione whispered, "it said 'another world' so I suppose we match now. Of course, there could be countless different 'worlds' out there, and there's no telling if our soulmates are in the same one or not. But I can hope, I suppose."

Sirius' tail thumped against Holly's bed as his tongue lolled out and Holly huffed a breath. "Small world-s." She muttered as she pulled on her shoes. Holly stood and moved with Hermione toward the door leaving the room, and Sirius hopped off the bed to follow her. His paws padded along behind them as they soundlessly left the dorms.

Following the reveal of Voldemort's return, an overhaul had overtaken the ministry and the school. Umbridge had been soundly kicked to the curb and Dumbledore had been reinstalled to Headmaster. Holly had at the time been in a coma and had been for most of the summer following the possession incident. She'd managed to take over Voldemort's mind long enough to save Sirius, and in return, he'd taken over her. Hermione and Ron had narrowly managed to prevent her from hurting anyone when Ron bodily tackled her and knocked her unconscious with a chair.

During the summer while she'd been in a coma Sirius had been ordered to remain in Grimmauld Place once more because he'd only narrowly escaped arrest for the second time. This time however he'd exploded on Dumbledore and the Order, Sirius had refused to listen, screamed into the Order's faces and parked his canine butt beside Holly. He declared for all to hear that he wouldn't be pulled from his daughter's side, which continued even after she woke up.

Holly regained consciousness in August, and Sirius had kept his words acting to the world as her pet who happened to sleep outside the girls' dorm guarding it against intruders. The girls in Holly and Hermione's year had, in fact, been alerted to his presence and identity, but none of them had complained as long as he was out of the dorm when they were sleeping, dressing, or otherwise. The acceptance was likely due to the building war and the fact that Sirius was a trained Auror ready to defend them all at a moments notice. It also helped he had bitten a Ravenclaw's leg when the boy tried to push Parvati out of her comfort zone.

As of her awakening, Holly hadn't needed to go to the Dursley's due to the timing and was taking occlumency lessons twice a week with Snape to prevent Voldemort from taking her over again, by his insistence oddly enough. She knew his offering to keep up her training had much to do with what he'd learned about her childhood, which neither of them was talking about.

Holly still didn't know the words of the prophecy, it had been destroyed by Dumbledore during the chaos of the battle and Dumbledore wasn't telling anyone the real words, especially not Holly who had been possessed so severely. Holly was still furious about this which was violently upsetting her relationship with the man who had basically ordered her attendance for private lessons that year. Holly personally hadn't gone to one yet and didn't intend to. He wasn't going to give her any useful information or training, she'd realized that long ago. Instead, she focused on her occlumency and her training with Sirius which they did every night.

Sirius, unlike Dumbledore, clearly wanted her prepared for the inevitable battle, so they spent every morning and night dueling. Sirius was teaching her as much magic as he could as quickly as he could. This was coupled with Tonks being the new defense professor, so Holly was getting in a lot of progress. Even if Dumbledore kept demanding her presence for nonsense reasons. She ignored him until he could treat the threat to her life seriously.

"Didn't Ron get the same one?" Holly asked as she and Hermione headed down the hallways. Holly toward the room of requirements and Hermione toward the library to research the odd connection between Holly and Voldemort.

"He did."

"A hell of a coincidence," Holly said as Sirius barked beside her in agreement. "Do you… do you have enough to go to them?"

Hermione looked forward as her eyes slipped downcast: "after everything… I do, but I can't go now. There's too much that I have to do."

"You could, you could leave the war and just… just leave."

Hermione shook her head: "I already know what I'm going to do. I, I have to say goodbye to my parents and pack for all kinds of different environments. Currency, languages, customs, everything will be different in another world. I need a way to pay for food and water, shelter and maps with a new currency-"

"How are you going to do that?" Holly asked.

"Oh, it's simple." Hermione stopped in the hallway and tapped her wand to her hand, in the middle of her palm a glittering piece of gold appeared: "depending on the common resources I can use a spell to temporarily create that currency to buy things. Naturally, it doesn't last more than a day, which is all kinds of illegal, but needs must as they say."

"… teach me," Holly demanded, and Hermione gave a laugh.

Hermione promised to do so as she continued to explain she would see the end of the war before she left as well. She absolutely refused to abandon Holly to fight Voldemort alone, that was unthinkable to her.

"Only after the war… after everything is done, then I'll start planning to leave… all three of us will I suppose." Hermione didn't want to think about that day yet. She was excited to meet her soulmate, but she'd be losing her home, family, and her best and truest friends. It was undoubtedly thought of with mixed emotions.

Holly agreed softly, her eyes sliding to Sirius just as he turned down the hallway heading to the room of requirements. Holly bid her goodbye to Hermione and turned off, catching up to Sirius who was already pacing in front of the door to open the room itself. Together they entered a dueling room, similar to what Aurors trained with she knew, and Sirius transformed.

He didn't comment on their talk, didn't give her the false hope that she'd end up in the same world as Hermione and Ron both. It was highly unlikely. Nor did Sirius say anything about her eventually leaving him as well, if she survived that was. Instead, he started to show her exactly how to use a Patronus message which had been something she'd been curious about for ages. He also explained if she used extra magic, she could make it take a recording as well, allowing someone who couldn't use a Patronus to respond to what she'd said.

"Wicked." Holly breathed as she practiced it.

As the sun rose outside the castle, as Holly got the spell down steadily, her mind started to wander to her soulmate again. About the woman, she had to be, Holly… she hadn't done anything with a woman yet, but she was sure. Her soulmate was not a boy. And she eventually had to tell Sirius about it.

Sirius and Holly swapped to a duel as they always did before she went to shower and head to classes. But her mind still wasn't in it, even if she could easily match Sirius thanks to her ridiculously powerful core.

Holly had a whole plan, had it plotted out down to the minute detail. She knew exactly what she'd say and when; she'd intended to bribe him a bit, and sit him down in a quiet moment with an obliviate at the tip of her wand just in case he- it wasn't like she'd didn't trust him- but, but what if he didn't accept it. That was always a possibility, and Holly knew people and families could be cruel.

But instead of going with that, she ended up blurting it out in the middle of a duel.

"My soulmate is a woman!"

She probably shouldn't have been casting when she did so because Sirius' shield faltered and he was thrown bodily into a wall. Not that it phased him for long.

"WHAT?!" he screamed, shooting to his feet. "You met her?! How come I haven't seen her!?" he looked around frantically as if Holly's soulmate would spawn out of nowhere and say 'hi.'

"No!" she gasped, "no, I haven't met her! No, I just- I well- I uh…"

Holly gripped her wand feeling nervousness enter her heart. She shouldn't have blurted it out, even if she'd been hoping Sirius would accept it. Dean and Seamus were an official couple now after they discovered they were soulmates and no one so much as blinked an eye at them. Holly had found then that wizards didn't care about gender or sexuality as long as the pure-blood family lines continued, which could be accomplished through a blood adoption if the matched pair were of the same gender. Sirius, being a Black and pure-blood, might agree or he might not, she didn't know.

But she kept thinking: Sirius was her only family, he was her blood adopted father, and in Circe's name she was terrified- why hadn't she just-

"I like girls," she choked out, "so my soulmate is a woman." She wanted to stare Sirius down, to be aware if he lunged, or if he turned as red as Vernon would- but at the same time, she couldn't look at him. Not him, she couldn't see that anger in him.

"Oh, got it." Sirius stood and brushed himself off, " I thought she'd traveled here. Well, alright, then. Let's continue."

Holly snapped her attention up, and Sirius was already slipping into his dueling stance. "But-" she blurted.

"But?" he asked, looking at her as if he couldn't fathom why she was wasting time, then the expression cleared: "Oh- oh yeah you were brought up muggle. Lils had the same problem, she was shocked when the first couple matched themselves, Alice set her straight back then. Listen pup, you don't have to worry about those muggle problems. I have absolutely no problem with you liking girls, good for you honestly, men are pigs." He rolled his eyes. "James would be thrilled; when you were born he was dreading this phase of your life, he wanted a proper rune encrusted pole to beat boys back." Sirius pitched his voice, "'she'll be stunning Padfoot' 'please let her like girls Padfoot,' 'what if someone like us is her soulmate Padfoot,' 'what do I do Padfoot?!'" Holly giggled a bit, and Sirius winked her way.

"You're fine pup, as long as that soulmate of yours makes you happy… and has a sense of humor, then I'll accept her. But nothing could make me stop loving you. Not who you love, not what you do, nothing. Like I said before if you want to abandon this war and live as a muggle, go for it. If you want to join the dark side I'll follow right after you. Suddenly decide to become a pirate to sail the seas, then I'll figure out how to sail."

Holly's eyes were burning, and Sirius stowed his wand. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her; his grip was firm and warm, comforting, and accepting in a way that made her crack. His were the hugs of a father, of acceptance from the very first moment Sirius had held her with shaking, freezing, Azkaban drained arms. He unmistakably, unconditionally loved her,

Holly gasped out a sob and clung to Sirius with as much strength as she could.

"Thank you." She desperately whispered.