A/N: Tone's getting odder. you were warned!
"A soulmate?" Echoed Poppy Pomfrey loudly, her eyes round with surprise.
"Ssshhh!" Hissed Albus Dumbledore, Molly Weasley, and Amelia Bones in unison.
The four were gathered in the small private room reserved for unwell professors at the far end of the Hogwarts hospital wing. The other guests at Albus' prematurely-ended dinner party - mostly Order members - had bid their host goodnight following Poppy's exit, who had been levitating a still unconscious, lamb stew-decorated Minerva before her.
"But there's never been anything said." Poppy eyed the other three dubiously. "If Minerva McGonnagall had a soulmate thread, all of Britain would know it, and have spent the last several decades waiting with bated breath to see who the poor bastard on the other end was." She remembered Amelia. "No offense."
"None taken." Amelia smirked. "And as to how no-one else knows, ask one of them." She waved at Albus and Molly.
"That's a long story," began Dumbledore.
"The thread was glamoured so no-one could see it." Explained Molly.
Albus harrumphed under his breath. "Poppy, I'm asking you to abide by your oath of healer/patient confidentiality in this. I'm telling you because apparently what affects Minerva's soulmate will have some effect on her also."
"So it's not usual for one to faint when the other is born?" asked Molly eyeing the now-glowing blue thread in Minerva's aura. When she had fainted there been a flash of unearthly blue so bright that it had almost blinded her.
"Who knows?" Said Albus. "Soulmates are so rare that there aren't many records of them. Some are affected by what happens to their soulmate, others aren't. Apart from death, of course. No soulmate ever survives their counterpart's death."
Amelia pursed her lips, remembering too well when her wife had come across that little nugget of information in her own research into her condition. She'd fallen into a deep depression for a week, devastated at the thought that not only did the "poor little bugger" have to put up with "an old harridan" like herself, but now she'd be shaving fifty years off his lifespan as well. Amelia had eventually sent her off to talk to Albus about it, and she'd returned not recovered, but resolved, clutching a small silver vial that she'd stashed somewhere and Amelia had never seen it again.
"So every time something happens to the soulmate…" Poppy began.
"Something… momentous?" Molly interrupted, looking to Albus.
"Or painful?" Amelia's look was a glare.
"Oh, who knows?" Albus repeated, throwing up his arms. "You and Minerva probably know as much as I do, Amelia. All I'm saying is that to keep an eye out, because obviously some things that affect the soulmate will affect her."
All four turned to gaze at the woman lying on the bed.
"I suppose we won't be able to keep from her that he's been born." Molly observed.
"Why would you want to?" Hissed Amelia. "Minerva has never been anything less than completely honest with me, and I'll not start lying to her now."
"It's just that you know Minerva. She'll probably trawl through every birthing record she can get to find the little blighter. I had hoped we could keep it from her until he was at least of age."
##
"Well, I've been through every birthing record I could get my hands on." Minerva told her wife as Amelia walked through the door to their cosy redbrick Hogsmeade house a week later, "and nothing. No baby boys born within a day either side of my…incident." She was still highly sensitive about her stew nosedive.
"Well, that's er…" was it good news? wondered Amelia. Her wife certainly looked much brighter.
"It's good news. If he's not here in Britain, then chances are he won't attend Hogwarts." Minerva smiled up with genuine relief. Amelia saw a weight lifted, that had been on her wife's shoulders since she'd found out about her thread. She didn't mention that perhaps the child was muggle-born. Or, as she suspected - knowing her wife as well as she did - a girl.
##
Thankfully, the effects of Minerva's soulmate on her were few and far between. There was a scabbed knee, the odd second-hand feeling of sadness or delight, and one memorable occasion where she spat an incisor tooth that had been loose for a couple of days clear across the transfiguration classroom. As the years passed, and Voldemort lay low, it was easy to forget that somewhere out there was a child that would change her life beyond recognition or even repair.
##
March 1990, Minerva and Amelia's redbrick house, Hogsmeade
"Do regret it?"
"Again, Minerva?" Amelia rolled her eyes. "My love, I knew what I was getting into when I married you. And I'd no sooner take back our years together than anything."
"I need to be sure." Her wife sighed. "Now that, well…"
"It's so close?"
"Exactly." Minerva looked contemplative, as she often did these days, gazing into the fire.
"Can I ask you a question?" Amelia asked suddenly and her wife turned to her.
"Anything."
"Have you ever considered that perhaps your soulmate bond… well, with so many years between you - not that I think there's anything wrong with that, as I've told you time and time again, but perhaps, I mean has there ever been a case where -"
"Oh, just spit it out, Amelia!"
Amelia grinned at her wife's impatience."What if your soulmate relationship wasn't, well, romantic as such?"
"I beg your pardon?" Minerva looked genuinely perplexed.
"There's all the stories, you see, about the grand love. Tristan and Iseult and the like, and I just wondered if one can be bound to a soulmate who isn't a lover. Who is a ...heart's companion" she laughed at the term she'd just found herself stumbling over. "Or some such nonsense."
Minerva was taken aback. It was something she'd never considered. "I've never heard of it. I… I'd to ask Albus." She frowned distractedly. "Hmmm."
A/N: It's romantic. Don't worry.