A/N: I have been wanting to write a soulmate AU forever now after reading tons in the Marvel Fandom, and this is an Soulmate AU story where Tom Riddle was born the same date but in 1977 (so in this universe James and Lily did not die). The story will have three different parts, the later two coming out soon! I hope you all enjoy!
If You're Mine
By Montley
xXx
I. The Beginning
Wizards grew up knowing the first words of their fated, the other person that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives with. Hermione's words were fairly innocuous and written upon her forearm in a thin, delicate, and imperfect script. What are you doing up so late?
At her birth, all were utterly perplexed by the strange birthmark that no muggle bore as though it had been written on her in the womb. It terrified the doctor and nurses who delivered her, writing it off as the strangest birthmark that they had ever seen. Her parents did not know what to make of it, and nothing that they tried to do in order to remove it ever worked. They merely stuck to covering it up, not wishing any other parent to believe that they would allow their child a tattoo. With every adults' dismissal of her mark, Hermione learned that when people, even the ones who acted wise and superior, had no answers they would merely ignore and conceal anything foreign, unknown and unfamiliar. Thus, hiding herself became a part of Hermione's daily routine.
Then, her true self arrived along with Hogwarts, where the secrets of her mark were revealed. The words in fact were the words that her soulmate would first speak directly to her, claiming her as their own with their eyes supposedly locked upon one another's. The concept of soulmate was strange to her eager, knowledge-yearning self, yet the words reassured her parents for the first time, and they no longer forced her to cover them, for now they solidified themselves in their idea that she would be loved without them around until the day of her death. On the other hand, at the news of her future soulmate, a concept Hermione had only heard of before in muggle expressions, she now felt the warmth of the words and their utter potential. Someone out there was meant to be hers and she was meant to be theirs in a unity that would last forever. Hermione seldom imagined at night of conquering and venturing the world with her soulmate, living a story that would make everyone remember their names.
Filled with hope of her future, like all wizards whose marks were deep, black, rich and unknown, she prospered at Hogwarts with her two best friends, Harry and Ron. Harry had met his soulmate before he had even stepped upon the Hogwarts Express within Ron's little sister, Ginny when they met each other's families on the platform. The two were tentative and nervous around the other until earlier that year when Ginny brashly asked Harry out, not caring for their future to be dismissed anymore, for Harry had not wanted to rush her into committing herself to him. He still did not, he had learned from his mother not to hurry Ginny into any sort of a commitment, for the both of them were still so young and fairly immature. Ron, like Hermione, still yearned for his soulmate, but the two of them held onto the mystery and placed their respective soulmates upon a pedestal that neither would ever fulfill.
Such a pedestal was claimed that one night early during their fourth year, when Hermione had been out late with Harry and Ron. The school was in the throes and tangles of the Triwizard Tournament, and Hagrid had urged them to come out the night before the first round to see the dragons in the Forbidden Forest that had arrived for the Champions.
On their way back to Gryffindor Tower after seeing the dragons, the three of them huddled under Harry's Invisibility Cloak, for they had lingered with Hagrid too late, and it was past curfew, which was nothing new for the three of them, especially Harry and Ron. Their brisque walk sped up as they reached their common room, and suddenly, Harry accidentally smacked against the corridor wall as they were turning a corner, precipitating the three of them to fall and Ron's foot to poke from under the cloak as they hurried to stand once more.
"Who's there?" a deep voice echoed from the other end of the corridor they just passed.
Ron creeped his head along the edge of the wall to peer down the corridor, and quietly griped back, "Oh, Merlin, it's Riddle, he won't give up."
"Riddle?" Hermione whispered.
"Shit, he's a rotten Slytherin prefect, caught us last year," Harry answered.
Hermione sighed and considered her desperate friends, too nervous to move. The both of them had been in trouble too many times to count, and another letter home for either of them, though it would please Harry's father immensely, would triple their detentions and punishments.
"Just go you two, I'll handle this," Hermione hissed.
"Hermione?" Ron said as she slipped out from under the Cloak before they could keep her from darting away with their outreached hands.
With a deep breath she turned the corner, uncaring towards any punishment that she may receive. Any distraction that she could possibly cast at the flick of her wand had less of a chance of protecting them, for they could easily trip again as the cloak could barely cover them all, leading to the confiscation of the cloak, especially if the prefect summoned others. So, she faced the tall, Slytherin prefect who was rushing down the corridor. Seeing her, his steps slowed until they were face to face.
"What are you doing up so late?" Riddle asked with a quirk of his thin lips and she froze, her eyes darting towards her imprinted arm. Anyone could ask such a question, but she had never spoken to this handsome prefect, so, she came up with something relatively unique.
"Night terrors," she chirped, unable to conceal her smile and blissful hope.
An eyebrow rose, and he was silent as his dark eyes slowly roved over her. His silence confirmed their fated truth. This boy, this Riddle, who lived under the same roof as her for four, bloody years was meant to be hers, and she was destined to belong to him, yet he made no move to recognize it.
"Name?" he finally asked of her after the dreadful silence.
"Hermione Granger."
"Tom Riddle," he stated plainly, allowing her the slightest notion as to who he was. "Come with me, Hermione Granger."
He spoke her name as plainly as his own, and yet, it incited a fervor in her, a type of need she had never felt before and could hardly begin to recognize. He began to walk away a few paces in front of her in a confident stride. Why wizards were assigned to one another at birth remained a mystery to the whole of the Wizarding World. Everyone had their theories; some believed soulmates were meant for breeding purposes, and such a theory ignored those who were infertile, others thought that it had nothing to do with the soul, rather the brain connecting equally like-minded individuals. Hermione liked to align her beliefs in the final theory, that soulmates were merely those who were bound to experience the depths of a great love.
Without speaking to her, they arrived on the seventh floor where her dormitory awaited her. Unsure whether she should say anything more to him, her soulmate, Hermione began to walk towards the entrance of her common room when he tightly griped her hand. She reveled and shuddered in the feeling of him bruising her skin, marking her consciously at his own choice, submitting himself into their fates.
Tom appeared shocked that he held her small hand in his and quickly dropped it, concealing the insecurity that Hermione saw for the briefest of moments, but he finally asked, "Can I see your mark?"
Hermione nodded, her eyebrows creased at his behavior and rolled up the sleeve of her uniform to reveal the scrawl. His lips formed the faintest of smiles as he recognized his writing and the first words he spoke directly to her.
"Might I see yours?" Hermione asked, and Tom did the same and rolled up the sleeve of his own uniform under which her neat script twisted upon his pale skin over blue veins. Cautiously she reached her hand out as Tom watched her appreciatively and one finger traced over her words upon him. Night Terrors. With such words, Hermione suddenly was filled with regret. Of all excuses or "unique" words that she could concoct for his simple question it was Night Terrors. As a child, he must have been plagued by the meaning of those words since it may have been apparent to him that his soulmate, his supposed beloved, only thought of him as a monster from the visions of her depraved mind. Yet, that was only if he even knew about soulmates as a child, and if he did not, just like she knew nothing, he may have associated himself with the monsters of the night, as would others who would jeer the doors of the words at him, for children could be the cruelest of beings, inflicting tumults of pain upon their peers.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said, drawing her hand away from him, and he rolled his sleeve back down to cover the mark.
"You're sorry?" Tom repeated back to her, slightly amused at her sudden apology.
"For the words, I could have said anything, and I chose-" Hermione began to ramble.
Tom interjected, "So you lied to me about what you were doing up so late?"
"Sorry," Hermione said, unsure of how she should behave or speak around him, they had just met each other and yet they knew that their lives would be spent entwined, "I didn't know you were my, I mean, perhaps if we get to know each other well, or, if this is what we believe, I won't, erm, lie."
After such a statement Hermione wished to slam her head against the cold, stone wall. This was her first meeting with her soulmate and he scarcely received a semblance of who she was, the girl he believed he was meant to spend his life with. Already she created a lie and a horror forever imprinted upon his body.
He licked his lip, began backing away and smirked. "I'll be informing your Head of House, Professor McGonagall about your late night activities, and you can let her know at any of the detentions that she sets up for you why you felt you needed to lie about your wanderings."
"But I-," Hermione began to say, but resigned in her attempt, comforted by the notion that she would have also given herself detention and would most definitely see him and his dark eyes again.
"Goodnight, Hermione, I'll see you another time," Tom said and whisked away before she could return the same sentiment. Desperately, Hermione wanted to reach towards and chase after the person she had spent her life until now waiting for, to talk to him and have all of this make perfect sense like all those before her who came across their soulmates for the first time. Even Harry and Ginny, meeting each other at eleven and ten years old respectively, felt a semblance of a spark and a pull towards one another. Yet with Tom, Hermione only wanted to chase after him for her future to make sense and for him to touch her again. His behavior towards her had been cold, and his calculated self lost its front only when he tightly griped her arm. That was the singular moment that she craved to dart back to so that she could grip his hand in return, to feel his touch and understand why the two of them were fated to be.
When Hermione finally crawled into bed, without seeing Harry or Ron, she was restless. She only thought of Tom and his dark eyes, a boy she barely knew, but who she belonged to and who she desired to own.
She traced his mark upon her skin, and What are you doing up so late? repeated in her mind again and again like it did when she was little and unknowing to the meaning of the words and why it lived upon her skin. Slowly, she replaced it in her mind with the words she claimed him with, knowing within her body and soul he was doing the same with the remembrance of her finger brushing against his skin. Night Terrors.
xXx
A/N: The next part of this story will be coming soon! With the other two chapters the story will most definitely be more thrilling and much longer, and I am very excited for them, and they are completely planned out. The next part will be out sometime this week or next!
Much love!
-Montley
