Bellatrix was seven years old when her soulmate was born. The explosive girl had been born with her family name on her back, and it was not uncommon, not in this family, and if her parents were unhappy about it, it was only because they would have preferred for her to make some sort of alliance with another family. Bellatrix grew up with diamond eyes and when they told her that she had a baby cousin for a mate and put him in her arms she saw that he had those same eyes. Andromeda had the same eyes, they shared them with their father, but Bella knew that those eyes were different from their eyes. Bella and baby Sirius had eyes that were meant for watching things burn, she just knew it.
The hat told her that she had the soul of a Gryffindor, but knew that she was meant for greatness. Bella rose to her full eleven year old height when they plucked the hat off her head. Her wild eyes stared straight ahead when she walked to the Slytherin table, where she was already royalty. The hat agreed. Bella had a destiny made of sharp teeth and heirlooms and the smell of smoke. She was made for this.
Bella was eighteen when her soulmate began school, eighteen when she found her Lord, eighteen when her mother wrote her and tells her that the heir to The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was a Gryffindor. She could almost hear the ice in her mother's words, with her Rosier scorn. She wondered if the hat told him he had the soul of a Slytherin.
It did. But Sirius knew he'd rather be brave than cunning, knew he was not meant for that set of robes. Sirius has got a plan, see. He's going to be big and strong and good, and he'll marry Bella and he'll make her happy, and he'll make sure her parents aren't there to be cruel. He's going to rescue his family, see. He's going to make it so that Andromeda can marry whoever it is on her spine, the other half of her soul, no matter how dirty their blood is. There will be no more 'blood traitors' or burned off parts on a tapestry. Sirius is eleven but he's got friends already, a pureblood and two half-bloods and he's going to change things. Sirius is ambitious. He prefers to call it daring.
Bella, standing on a balcony, talked to her cousin/soulmate/best friend/something else. She was twenty and beautiful and he was twelve and charming. She is wondering if the mark will call her to His side, and if she loves Him more than Sirius. She wondered if she was capable of it.
Their spines tingled, and it angered her. She was destined for something more than this, and Bella's always been all or nothing, and she can't do either. She was tied to Sirius, but she couldn't stay with him. The stars may all be in the sky, but they don't touch.
Sirius is twelve when he realizes that he could save no one. It was too late for Andromeda, she had run away. Bella was… angry.
They fought the night he left. He was sixteen, arrogant but certain. He couldn't stay here, in the shadows and the foulness any longer. She was twenty three, biting and cruel in her anger and fear that Sirius was leaving her.
She shrieked that he was a blood traitor coward and he screamed that she was a careless bitch and they shouted for hours and said the worst things they could think of, and they tore open wounds that they had kissed better for each other. And when they kissed it was as gentle as it ever could have been. Meaning; when they tasted blood, they are surprised.
He left and she followed her Lord, and she wanted nothing more than to love Him like she loved him. God she hated him. Where was he? It didn't matter. Her soulmate was a black spot on a piece of cloth and that was the end of it. Her left index finger had a ring on it from a boy who didn't have a soulmate, but did have the right blood and political beliefs.
Bella holds her wand in her clenched hand.
Sirius holds his best friends lives in his shaking hands.
This is their destiny. Some soulmates can only touch briefly.