even as a shadow, even as a dream: Hermione knows she is not meant to be with Ron, but learning you have a Soulmate can come with unforeseen consequences
It started like any other Sunday. Hermione woke up hours before Ron, heading into their kitchen to fix up some coffee and a light breakfast for herself. She would make another one later on for when Ron finally got out of bed. Then, they would head to the Burrow for the weekly Weasley family dinner. Ever since the war ended, those dinners had been bursting the Burrow at the seams with the number of strays the family had collected throughout the years. The Burrow was just a place that radiated warmth and love, and there were many more who needed that these days. Andromeda and Teddy, for example, were always there.
But this Sunday, Hermione felt herself breaking. She was stretched thin to the maximum point and she knew it was because of the man she was living with and she knew it was because she had realized she didn't really love him. She couldn't have loved him even if she tried.
She wanted to love him. She thought that she had, her constant stress during their sixth year at school, the frustration and loneliness during the Horcrux Hunt, it always came back to one Ronald Weasley. Lately, however, the spark that she had assumed was meant for Ron had all but disappeared, if it had ever been there at all.
It had been almost a year since the war had ended. She had thought the emptiness she felt was due to its aftermath, that after some time to heal things would go back to normal and she would feel as she had before. She hadn't worried too much about it.
But after so long, she couldn't convince herself that it was just the war had affected her feelings. After all, everything else had gone back to almost normalcy a few months ago. Yes, things were still rough at times, and many nights she woke up drenched in sweat from nightmares, but she had still felt like she was well on her way to healing. So why could she not feel love for Ron?
She had been worrying on it for weeks now, and she didn't know how many more fake impassioned moments she could have with Ron before she broke down. She didn't want to hurt him, didn't want and the rest of the clan to hate her for breaking his heart, didn't even want to know what Harry would say or what the consequences would be. She just wanted it to work. But not matter what she did, no matter how much she tried to convince herself, she realized she could not love him.
Truthfully, she had been up almost the whole night, researching any spells that could potentially help her break the news to him. She had found herself engrossed in a book about soulmates, and things had started to make a bit more sense.
The book had mentioned that each of a pair of soulmates could not hold true romantic feelings for anyone other than their mate. A crush seemed to be about as far as it went. It had also mentioned that not every witch or wizard had a soulmate, and had provided a fairly simple incantation to determine whether or not the caster had one. As it turned out, she did.
She had felt her heart flutter at that. A true Soulmate. She wanted to feel that love. As much as she hated the romantic and girly antics of her previous roommates, she couldn't deny wanting to have someone she was truly meant to be with for the rest of her life. She felt hope knowing there would be something better than this one-sided love she had with Ron right now. (as she assumed, or at least hoped at this point, he wasn't her Soulmate)
Thankfully, the book had also included a spell to cast upon another person that could potentially be the caster's soulmate. There would be a brief glow of red or blue, (visible only to the caster) the former meaning a negative and the latter an affirmation. She had almost immediately snuck into her bedroom, where Ron was fast asleep, to cast the spell on him. It had been red.
So here she was, sitting at the kitchen table and sipping coffee, the book on soulmates laid out in front of her as she thumbed through it.
A witch or wizard's Soulmate can never intentionally harm their other half. Maybe this Soulmate business would be the way to break it off with Ron without hurting as many feelings. That is, if they didn't get offended by her casting the spells in the first place.
The Soulmate bond can be felt at any distance, at any time, any place in the world. Often, if they have yet to be united, Soulmates will dream of the other, their subconscious mind demonstrating the yearning of the soul to be complete. She sighed. She never dreamed anymore, not since the war. Only nightmares or blackness plagued her mind, if she could even sleep at all. Perhaps she needed to see a mind healer. God knew she had experienced enough trauma solely at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, let alone any other part of that hellish year.
Pairs of Soulmates have mentioned that, after meeting their other half, if they are separated for long periods of time each of the pair can feel a number of distressing emotions. Hermione almost snorted at that. If that was the only indicator if she had met her Soulmate or not, she felt it would be a long time before she would realize those feelings meant anything other than PTSD-type symptoms.
In the event of - "Morning, 'Mione," Hermione jumped as she heard Ron's voice from the doorway, quickly shutting her book and placing it in her lap. She didn't even want to know what he would think if he saw the title of it.
"You're up exceedingly early today. I must say, I'm a bit impressed," Hermione said to him as he rummaged through the cabinets, not doubt trying to find an easy snack. She felt herself smile. Even if she felt strained and anxious about the inevitable end to their relationship, and even if she didn't love him romantically, she still knew she cared for Ron deeply. They had been through too much together for them to not be close, and part of her anxiety came from the very real worry that Ron would take the end of their relationship very badly.
Ron had found a bit of bread and blueberry spread and he answered, "Don't know if I'll stay awake, to be honest. Too hungry to sleep. Hope you have a nice morning, though," he mumbled. Hermione let out a soft chuckle as Ron took his bread and jam back to the room. She fully expected to hear loud snores coming from the back room in about five minutes. Her stomach knotted back up again at the thought of losing this easiness with him, so she turned back to the book to try and distract herself with knowledge.
In the event of the death of a Soulmate, the living pair is said to feel a constant ache in the chest, is prone to headaches and illness, and some have described an empty feeling, "as if my insides had been hollowed out." It is unknown if these feelings abate or grow over time.
Hermione frowned at this new bit of information. The knot in her stomach grew tighter as she recognized these symptoms in her own body, the ones that had made her feel almost exactly as the book had described. She tried to slow her breathing, convincing herself that she was worrying where she had nothing to actually worry about. Everyone felt different after the war, she had just been affected more than most, being at the center of everything with Harry. It was normal that she felt these things. There was a completely logical explanation. It did not mean that her Soulmate was dead.
She flipped back a few chapters to find the section on searching for the Soulmate. There wasn't a simple spell to use to find out the specific name of your Soulmate. She had been disappointed at that. However… an individual with a Soulmate pair, upon entering a meditative state, can call forth an image of their Soulmate. The meditative state is similar to the state of mind one might use for Occlumency or an Animagus transformation. An image of the Soulmate can be called forth whether the mate is alive, dead, or, in rarer cases, yet to be born.
She felt her hands trembling and knew she had to calm herself before she could enter into her state. After Harry had tried and failed to use Occlumency his fifth year, she had decided to try and take up the mind magic. If nothing else, she thought it would be a great study tool, and a way to organize her mind. She had become pretty decent at the meditative state. So she found herself in her small library room, plopped herself in the comfiest armchair, and tried to center herself as best as she could in this state.
It took a long time, much longer than it had ever taken her before, even when she was just beginning. She had started to worry that Ron would wake up again and interrupt her before she was finished, before cursing herself at breaking her meditation by worrying about it in the first place.
But then she felt herself sinking into it, and her hands ran over silky grass. She sighed as she entered her meadow. It still made her laugh sometimes that she had such a simple mindscape. But in the end, that's what truly calmed her. Simplicity. She shook her head slightly and chastised herself. If she kept going on with rambling thoughts like that she would break herself out of the state and she would have to start all over again.
Her heart leapt into her throat as she saw movement to her left. She stood up quickly, her vision going a bit black from the blood rushing through her body. As it cleared, the body approaching her came into view. She felt her jaw go slack as she recognized the man walking towards her. She saw him every week at the Burrow and she wanted to laugh hysterically at the irony of the situation.
"George?" She called out incredulously. He still hadn't quite reached her yet, but she could see him cock his head at her. His features were coming into clearer view and the shock still rocked her body as she took them all in. The red hair was a clear indicator even from a mile away, and as he got closer she took in his freckled face and sweet brown eyes. She couldn't believe she was already thinking of them as sweet. He looked at her with a sad little smile, and her eyes raked over George yet again and he -
No.
Two ears.
She stopped breathing. If she kept breathing, that meant she was alive and she was real and that this was happening and that it was not George Weasley standing in front of her, but Fred. But then she had to breathe and and her first breath in was shuddering and the immediate breath after was a choked sob and she couldn't stop the high-pitched, unearthly noise that came with it. She was on her knees and she couldn't stop crying and it only became worse when she felt a warmth on her shoulder, not quite the presence of a hand but it was still there and she knew it was him.
She woke back into the library room, her face wet and her breath shallow. She had fallen out of the chair, silently weeping. She couldn't will her body to start sobbing again. Her energy had been sapped, her resolve crushed at this horrifying twist of Fate. She hadn't even been able to know him. Not like she would have wanted to have known him. She knew she had always felt a draw towards the twins, her mood lifting when they were in her presence, but she had never noticed that the feeling was specifically geared towards Fred. She had attributed anything to the twins magnetism and charm.
Everything hurt. She couldn't process this, she didn't want to think she would never feel that kind of love, that she had never even gotten the chance. It had been stolen from her, stolen from both of them. Was she doomed to spend the rest of her time alive in a loveless, empty existence?
She couldn't breathe again. It hurt too much. She let her eyes close and her head rest on the ground, exhaustion hit her and she just wanted to sleep. She wanted to forget, or to see his face in her dreams, and that brought along a new set of sobs as she remembered another bit from the book.
Would she ever be able to dream of him again?
Insane House Challenge: First Line - It started like any other Sunday.
Hall of Mirrors: SoulmateAU