Romance Awareness Month - you see your soulmate in your dreams

Prompt: "I will miss you when I wake up" - I shall miss thee when I awaken

Helena added the final ingredient to the potion she had been brewing for over a month - three drops of blood from her left hand.

Her mother wished to marry her off to an old friend of hers, and Helena refused to wed someone twice her age. So Rowena had given her an ultimatum - find her true love before her twenty-second birthday, or accept that her mother knew that which was best for her. After all, it wouldn't do to have the daughter of the illustrious Rowena Ravenclaw an old maid, never mind the fact that she herself had wed at age 30.

But Rowena had underestimated Helena's tenacity. After searching for months, making friends with the oldest pureblood families she could fine and secretly letting herself into the libraries to make copies of their books, she had found an old blood ritual. One that would let her see her soulmate in the sleeping world, even if the image was distorted.

Pouring the solution into a vial, she downed the contents in one, dropping to the floor as she dreamed.

Could this really be the realm of dreams? Helena asked herself. Everything was cloudy, as though draped in a white fog. She squinted at the light, which blinded her and yet did not illuminate her surroundings at all. She had never dreamed such a dream, at least not that she could remember.

Holding out her left hand, she noticed that a pathway revealed itself within the mist, and so she followed it into the labyrinth, hoping that the spell wouldn't lead her astray.

Septimus fell.

He did not know how, nor why. One moment he was sitting down to eat a late supper with his sister, Threia, as her husband had gone out hunting, and the next he was on the floor, his heartbeat sounding in his ears.

'Septimus? Septimus?' His sister shook him, but her voice was fading fast.

Has he finally done it? Septimus wondered. Has her husband finally poisoned me, so Threia will inherit the family fortune?

Helena heard a faint cry from her right. Blurred figures moved around the shape of a table, like phantoms of what people could have been. She could make out no features, not even a the colour of their clothes. One was kneeling by the other, who lay prone on the ground.

Could they be my soulmate? She asked herself. But how am I to find them if I cannot even see them? What is the point of my search if only to be confronted with this?

Just as she was about to turn away, the figure on the floor started to become clearer, more cohesive. It started taking shape, forming arms and legs and hair, but the face remained blank.

Where am I? It asked, and Helena was surprised to understand the words, though the figure did not appear to speak.

Septimus rose and saw Helena standing before him, like some Dark goddess about to sacrifice him at the altar. His heart clenched, could this be death? It would make sense for fate to cruelly show him one last image of the woman he had always loved, who had ever ignored him, right before the end.

But then he felt her voice speaking to him. He did not hear her, rather he felt the words and they felt like her. As though her magical aura had enveloped him somehow, like a guardian angel come to comfort him in his last moments.

Thou art not dead yet, she said to him, and suddenly, nothing made sense.

I wished to see my true love, she said. I did not expect thee, though I suppose that I might have guessed.

Thy true love? Septimus had long since abandoned all attempt to understand his situation. Thou meanst, that thou willst accept my proposal? After all these years?

I will, she dipped her head. But thou must hurry. Even now, my mother plans my nuptials. I have ever spoken of thee with a heavy heart, so she will not understand our union now. Thou must make the preparations as soon as thou art able. Or else… Or else I shall be married to foul Hengist of Woodcroft.

Septimus felt his heart cleave in two. Thou meanst to say that I am but the lesser of two evils. A fate to which thou resigneth thyself, but for which thou holdest no love in thy heart.

Helena faltered. He could not see her features amongst the fog, but her aura paled palpably, trembling with shame.

Then I will remove my proposal, he said. I cannot stand to have such hope, to have thee so near and yet further away than ever before. At Hogwarts, I commanded thy respect, if not thy affection. I will not throw away such a precious thing, not even for thee.

Septimus! Her magic was frenzied now - he had been her last hope. Please! Would thou simply accept my terms and be done with it? I do not love thee now, but perhaps I can learn to, in time…

I will miss thee when I awaken, Septimus cut her off sadly. I am sorry Helena, but I could not live with this burden.

But couldst thou live with the knowledge that thou wouldst never see me again? Helena asked, manipulating his emotions as she had always done at school. I must flee if thou doth not accept my offer. Couldst thou live with the knowledge that thou wouldst tear my family apart?

I fear that it is not me who would be the cause of such strife, my lovely lady, Septimus replied.

In a fit of rage, Helena pushed at him with all of her magic…

And woke up on the floor in her mother's laboratory. She had failed. She had failed miserably, and though she had an inkling that it was her fault, that her heart had hardened to the point that she would not even accept her true love, she brushed that inkling aside. She had bags to pack, an itinerary to plan, work to find.

And if a lone tear rolled down her cheek to the corner of her lip, she did not complain at the salty taste.