Yo! This is a soulmate AU, that follows canon in the early years and deviates from canon in the later years. There will be very little dialogue in the beginning because I'm speeding through the early years.

Warnings: Mentions of child abuse-nothing detailed. Fem!Harry. Grey!Harry. Mentions of at least one slash pairing (Sirius/Remus). Other pairings are currently undecided and will be mentioned once thought of. Also, if it isn't clear yet, soulmates.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters...

Severus learned about the concept of soulmates when he was a child, and his very first thought about it was that it sounded idiotic. Muggles and wizards alike all treated it like it was some sort of miracle. They said it was the best thing that could ever happen to someone. He listened to everyone talk about soulmates with so much pride and happiness. They seemed so pleased. And yet, all Severus could think was that they were fools.

He thought they were all blinded by this soulmate nonsense. There were more important things in life than devoting all of one's time to a stranger or someone one barely knew. Even their joy seemed like idiocy in his eyes. After all, his parents were soulmates and things between them couldn't have been more miserable.

Watching his parents was the biggest reason Severus was so against soulmates. But he knew his thoughts weren't logical. He saw numerous positive examples of soulmates in and out of Hogwarts, after all. His dislike for soulmates made as much sense as disliking marriage due to one's parents divorcing. He was entirely aware that it made little sense for him to feel this way, but even when he began realizing that…

Severus liked Lily. She was a sweet girl, very bright and lively, but she was also loud and even a little abrasive at times. But he liked her. It wasn't love. In his mind, those meant different things. He didn't much care for something like love.

Despite being soulmates, despite always telling her that he loved her, his father always hurt his mother. He hurt Severus too. If that was what love was, Severus wanted no part in it.

Still, he liked Lily. She wasn't perfect, but neither was Severus. He knew she didn't understand everything about his life, even the things he was more explicit about, but even though she didn't understand, she told him she wasn't willing to stop being his friend because of it. So, he liked her. And Lily had a soulmate.

Like everyone else who had one, Lily had a small mark on the inside of her left wrist. It was dark, like all marks, but was, unmistakably, a stag with a lily on its breast. Only matching mates had matching marks. Somewhere out there was one person whose wrist bore the same image as the one on Lily Evans'.

And that person wasn't Severus.

But he wasn't upset. He was a little disappointed, yes, but not upset. Not being Lily's soulmate wasn't the end of the world. It wasn't like he loved her, after all. So it was okay. It was. Not everyone had a soulmate, and it wasn't as if life was terrible for those who didn't. Most just kept it to themselves.

Soulmates didn't always live at the same time either, something else that Severus frequently questioned. For some, meeting, even in secret, wasn't feasible for numerous reasons. In even worse cases, one's soulmate ended up being someone terrible. No one had any say in who or what their mate was.

Severus didn't care much about having a soulmate, so it didn't bother him at all that the inside of his left wrist remained bare. It didn't. Really.

It didn't bother him when Black and Lupin ended up being soulmates, and it didn't bother him when Lucius and Narcissa turned out to be soulmates. And when it turned out that Lily's soulmate was Potter? That also didn't bother him. Not in the slightest.

Okay, so maybe it did bother him, but only a little. It would have been nice to have someone want him like other soulmates wanted each other. It would have been nice to have even one person just care. It didn't need to be Lily.

But the mark never appeared.


Severus graduated from Hogwarts without his soulmark ever appearing. Almost immediately after leaving the castle, he joined the Dark Lord, gaining a mark of an entirely different kind. Perhaps he wouldn't have become a Death Eater if he' had a soulmate. But it didn't matter anymore.

There was no leaving the Dark Lord's service. Death always came first.

And then everything changed.

Severus was twenty years old and still had no soulmark. Lily, however, was pregnant, and the Dark Lord had decided that her child was the one destined to defeat him. He wanted to kill it. The child, Potter, and Lily-he wanted all three of them gone. Severus couldn't let that happen.

He didn't care for Potter, but the child, not even born yet, hadn't done anything wrong. And then there was Lily. For a long time, Lily had been his only friend. He wanted her to be happy, and he was forced to admit that Potter made her feel exactly that. He couldn't let her family die. He just couldn't.


"But what if the prophecy is fake, my Lord?" asked Severus. "I have never heard of the seer who spoke it. Surely there must be a chance that it's wrong."

"I expect a chance of that," said the Dark Lord, "but even the slightest of chances cannot go ignored. You are a smart boy, Severus. You should already know this."

"I understand, my Lord, but even then, there is no proof that it speaks of the Potter child. There will be thousands of children born during the end of July."

"That may be true, but the child will be born to parents who have thrice defied me." Leaning back in his seat, the Dark Lord stroked his chin. "Very, very few have done that. So few, in fact, that there are only two options. My reasons for choosing the Potter child are my own."

"But-"

"Severus." There was a warning in the Dark Lord's tone now.

"I apologize, my Lord," said Severus immediately. But he still tried to convince him that the child was no threat to him. Tried, tried, tried, even when it got him tortured for being insolent.

But nothing worked.

The Dark Lord refused to listen. He didn't listen to anyone, in fact, which was odd even to Severus. It wasn't like the Dark Lord to behave this way.


Things grew chaotic after that.

Once the Dark Lord had made it clear that he wasn't going to change his mind, there was practically mass panic among the Death Eaters to locate the Potters. They were ordered not to harm them but were to report to their Lord the instant they found them, and Severus only became more conflicted as the days flew by.

Dismissed from another meeting, Severus slipped out of the room quickly and leaned against the wall, brushing hair out of his eye. That was when he saw it.

On the inside of his left wrist, there was a mark. It was a flower, a violet, he recognized, and in the centre of the violet was a small, indistinct shape that looked vaguely like a cauldron. He stared at it, confused, unsure when it had appeared, and it took him a few long minutes to understand what he was looking at. And then it hit him.

A soulmark.

Now that he'd noticed it, Severus had a hard time looking away from the mark, even though he knew he had little time to dwell on it. He had a job to do-a job that was becoming increasingly distasteful as the days went by.

The Dark Lord's behaviour continued to worsen. No one seemed to understand why he was suddenly putting so much stock into a prophecy when he'd never seemed to care for anything relating to divination before this. But no matter what any of the Death Eaters, regardless of their positions and seniority said or did, the Dark Lord never took heed of them.

Severus felt as if he only had one option left, and it was an option he hated. It was a last resort in almost every way, but he was quickly realizing that he had no other choice. If he didn't do this, if he didn't swallow his pride, Lily would die. And so, swallow that pride, he did.


"I see. This is most concerning." Dumbledore frowned. "You are doing an incredibly brave thing here today, Severus."

Dumbledore listened to everything Severus said, and then he vowed to protect the Potter family and gave him the job of potions professor at Hogwarts to help keep him safe.

Severus thought everything would be alright, then. He thought Dumbledore, who cared so much for his precious Gryffindors, would make sure of it.

But he didn't.

Some months later, on Halloween, Severus felt his Dark Mark burn so severely he nearly cried out. He pushed up his sleeve and much to his alarm, saw that the mark had faded. It wasn't gone, wasn't even close to being gone, but it had faded in a way he'd never seen before.

A few hours later, he found out why.

Dumbledore came to him and told him that the Dark Lord had gotten into the Potter household. He'd killed Potter, and he'd killed Lily, and he'd tried to kill their child-a girl whose name he vaguely recalled being told was Violet.

But the Dark Lord had failed in this final attack, his killing curse hitting the child but for a reason no one understood, rebounding off of her and back at him. And now he'd been vanquished, or so people were saying.

Severus only had to look at the mark on his left forearm to know that the Dark Lord wasn't gone for good, and he honestly had no idea how he felt about it. But there was more than that, too.

Though Dumbledore's expression and tone of voice had been sombre enough when delivering the terrible news, there was something in his eyes that had Severus raising his guard.

He couldn't put his finger on it, but something made it seem like Dumbledore was almost...pleased with what had happened. Pleased with the deaths? Pleased with the survivor?

Severus wasn't sure, but as someone who already had so many problems with Dumbledore, he felt positive that he could never truly trust the old Headmaster.

Potter was dead. Lily was dead. But their child... The child who was seemingly the cause of all of this appeared to be alive and safe. Did that help him at all? No, not really. It didn't make things any better for him, but he supposed it was enough.

It had to be.


Severus remained at Hogwarts, accepting Dumbledore's vague protection, glad it at least kept him out of Azkaban. He went on teaching, though it brought him little joy.

Children didn't understand how delicate and precise potion making was, didn't understand how it could save or kill. They were too caught up in all of the foolish wand-waving their other subjects provided that any class that didn't allow the same was a bore to them. Unnecessary.

He was strict-he needed to be to ensure they didn't kill themselves or their classmates, but even he knew he was being too strict. The other three Houses thought he was too lenient with the Slytherins and too harsh towards the rest of them, and while there was some truth to it, he couldn't say they were entirely accurate. After all, people only saw what they wanted to see, only heard what they wanted to hear.

Slytherins were the outcasts. They were treated coolly by the other three Houses, whether warranted or not, and it didn't help that an alarming number of them came from households that were abusive in some way. They had too many expectations heaped upon them at home and a different sort of expectation when they arrived at Hogwarts.

It was true that they retaliated and acted out, but they knew loyalty too, though they reserved it for their fellow Slytherins. And Severus was lenient on them, at least in front of the other Houses, but he knew just as well that he wasn't the only Head of House who was like that. Frankly, the other three were no different…


The years continued to pass and Severus never did manage to find out who his soulmate was. It wasn't a priority, he told himself, but he kept his eyes open, trying to spot someone who bore the same soulmark he did, though he always made sure his own was concealed. But he never found them.

And eventually, ten entire years had passed since the Halloween incident. It wasn't something Severus liked to think about very often, but there were always reminders around him and now, much to his dismay, there was a reminder he was going to be stuck with for the next seven years.

Violet Potter had arrived at Hogwarts.

Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!