Synopsis: Anything your soulmate loses finds its way to you. Rebekah takes an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize something she should’ve known all along.
Genre: fluff, angst
Notes: written for the hphm 2024 ship week! I know it’s day one and I’m using a day 2 prompts but they’re my favorites. unfortunately, inspiration is finicky and I just have to follow where it leads. hope nobody minds! this could technically be a two-in-one with the DANCE prompt. I completely lost track of time soon so it ends kinda abruptly so sorry about that!
**Also a quick note, I’d grown too attached to the backstory I’d come up with before mcs canon dad was introduced, so I’m ignoring that.
Rebekah’s soulmate, she determined at a young age, must be quite forgetful. Growing up, it was a remarkably common occurrence for her to wake up in the morning with some strange and foreign object sitting on her nightstand. Being a witch, she was used to all kids of magical items with powers beyond the imagination. What made these items so strange, however, was the striking mundanity of them.
She remembers vividly the morning she awoke to a small red plastic box on her nightstand. Inspecting it found a small blade nestled on the inside. With her brother at school, she had to settle for asking her parents if they had any idea what the odd thing was.
Her father laughed brightly when he saw in, small enough to fit in her palm. He walked over to his desk nestled in the living room corner and brought back one of his muggle writing utensils.
“This, my dear, is a pencil sharpener.” He chuckled and plucked it carefully from between her fingers.
Putting the pointy end in the sharpener, he turns it a few times. When he removes it, Rebekah is astonished to realize it’s sharper than it was before. How unique.
“I think those are better than quills,” Rebekah giggles and examines both the pencil and the sharpener. “This is so plain! And it’s way easier to write with.”
Her father grins happily at her apparent approval and taps the sharpener curiously. “Where did you get this if you don’t know what it is?” He asks.
“I found it in my room. I think it was—”
“Your soulmate,” her father finishes for her astutely.
Rebekah is more than pleased by this development. Her soulmate always loses the strangest things. She loves getting to see these things. Forming a picture in her mind of what they must be like. If they use lots of pencils, maybe they’re an artist! Or maybe they like writing stories.
Her father, on the other hand, turns away from her with the faintest frown. His brows are furrowed as he considers something in his head and she grabs his hand.
“Dad?”
Her voice snaps him from his thoughts and his frowns is quickly replaced with a smile. “Oh, sorry, Beks. It’s nothing. I’m glad you get to have this.”
In her youthfulness, Rebekah does not pull at this thread. She accepts this reply and focuses back on the pencil sharpener. Maybe if she would have, she could’ve saved herself and her soulmate a lot of time.
~✰~
The night that her brother disappeared, Rebekah couldn’t sleep. She’d caught him leaving in the middle of the night and Jacob managed to convince her to go back to bed and that she’d see him in the morning. Despite listening to him, Rebekah just had a sinking, dreadful feeling that he was wrong.
She tossed and turned all night. Her stomach felt like it had been twisted into several knots. When sleep finally claimed her, the sun had been just beginning to rise.
When she did eventually wake up, it was to the exact news she had feared. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. Her parents could barely say the words.
Nobody really spoke that day. Everyone just cried. Even though Jacob had only been reported missing, it felt like they were mourning him already. Rebekah couldn’t get away fast enough, back to the quiet solitude of her room. At least there she couldn’t hear the despair of her mother’s cries and couldn’t see the emptiness in her father’s eyes.
She changed into her pajamas with haste, hoping that maybe if she went to sleep, she wouldn’t have to feel this way anymore. At least for a time. Though, When she returned to her bed there was something there waiting for her.
Rebekah was surprised to see it. Usually, she only received her soulmate’s things in the morning.
Yet there it was, plain as day. Her steps were hesitant as she approached it. A long day of grief had left her tired and weary. But when her fingers met the soft fur, her tears began anew.
It was a teddy bear, dressed impeccably in a little white bow tie around its neck. The soft fur was a dark, chocolatey brown and felt like what she would imagine a princess’s pillow to be like. There was a small smile stitched into its face and round black eyes watching her. As soon as she touched it, she crumbled again.
Rebekah sat on her bed, pulled it into her lap, and wrapped her arms all the way around it. Her tears got the fur wet, but having something to catch them provided an unspeakable amount of support.
She wasn’t sure if her soulmate had sensed something was wrong and lost it on purpose. Or perhaps they were just that absent-minded. Whatever the case may be, all Rebekah knows is that night, her tears weren’t entirely unhappy.
~✰~
When Rebekah was finally accepted into Hogwarts, she had some faith that she might find her soulmate there.
Throughout the years, they had all come to the conclusion that her soulmate had to be a muggle. That, or perhaps a muggle-born. It was the only explanation they had for all the lost items Rebekah had received up to that point. This might’ve bothered someone else, but Rebekah cared little of the circumstances of her soulmate’s birth. Her own father is a muggle and the best man she knows so this possibility does not perturb her.
Still, she would prefer that they were still of the wizarding world if only so she could meet them sooner.
It was, in fact, right outside of potions that Rebekah met Ben Copper for the first time. Perhaps it was Merula’s bad attitude that had soured the mood or their shy natures that threw her off. It only matters that when they met, the thought did not immediately cross her mind. Surely, soulmates should compliment each other—she thought. Whereas her and Ben could barely take turns muttering their sentences.
Even as the year went on and she discovered he was indeed a muggle-born, Rebekah had all but forgotten about the possibility of meeting her soulmate when faced with the potentiality of getting her brother back.
The task began to consume her. If she could find him, if she could save him then she could bring him back and fix their family! Their mother and father had not been the same since Jacob disappeared. The house was too empty. The old pictures in frames on the wall were too painful to look at anymore.
By the time one might start to connect the dots, Rebekah’s priorities were fully somewhere else.
The only time that this question ever returned to cross her mind, was when Hogwarts held for them a ball in her fourth year.
Of course, it was with no small amount of glee that she found herself accompanying Ben as his date. She would be lying if she said she did not feel something for him. A crush if ever she’s had one, but the distant thought of her soulmate always held her back from seeking more. She does not have time for a boyfriend anyway. Not if she hopes to find Jacob before she graduates.
But when she met Ben at the top of the ballroom stairs, the spark that ran through her felt more magical than magic. She could enjoy tonight at least. They had both certainly earned it.
While they were dancing, a confession slipped off her tongue, one so silly it made her laugh.
“Y’know,” she says. “I had planned to make you a custom tie. It’s probably a lot for a dance, I know, but I’ve been experimenting a lot with painting. I’ve been talking to Filch and he helped me with a charm that would allow me to reflect my paintings onto an object. I thought it would be a nice gift but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
Ben’s cheeks pinked at the admission, a small, intimate smile on his face. “How come?”
“I lost it,” Rebekah laughs at herself. How she could manage to lose one of her own projects is beyond her. She must’ve been more distracted than she thought. “It was supposed to have stars on it. The Sagittarius constellation specifically since I know that’s your sign.”
Rebekah had missed the expression on his face then, but his feet stuttered in their practiced steps. Her eyes caught his and asked him an unspoken question.
Ben merely cleared his throat and looked bashfully away. “That’s—wow. That’s a shame. I think I would’ve loved it.”
“Me too.”
~✰~
Graduation was a very bittersweet occasion. Stepping foot into Hogwarts had opened up so many doors and lit the fire of several hopes and dreams. All of which has now been effectively shattered. Aside from the fact that she did manage to save her brother, nothing has panned out the way she wanted. It would not be a stretch to say that she is leaving the school a more hardened woman than the little girl who walked in.
As is tradition, the graduating class is throwing a huge going away party in the school’s largest courtyard. Though, many of her peers can be seen slipping away here and there.
Rebekah turns and checks the time on the clocktower, sighing as she takes a sniff of the firewhiskey Andre had insisted she try a sip of.
“Waiting for someone?”
The familiar voice shocks her back to the present and she turns to find Ben grinning at her. Suddenly, the whole party sounds a little less loud and some of the voices fall away. She smiles back.
“I was worried you wouldn’t show.” She muses and he offers a playful look to the drink in her hand. A laugh rips from her and she shakes her head, turning around to pour out the contents from the goblet she’d been drinking from.
“Well, it’s our going away party. I wanted to make sure I was dressed appropriately.”
Rebekah chuckles takes a step back to examine the outfit he chose. It’s hard to tear her stare away from his eyes, soft and brown, and his hair—the blond strands now more stylishly ruffled than when they were kids. He appears to have settled on a darker outfit than she’s used to seeing on him, but it actually lends itself to a more mysterious look that she thinks he’s been aiming for recently. Admits the dark backdrop of the night, she can’t say it doesn’t feel on theme.
“Recognize anything?” He tries to tease, but the words sound a bit strangled and nervous in his throat.
She offers him a puzzled look before inspecting again. It takes far longer than she cares to admit for her eyes to widen and her mouth to drop open.
“Ben, is that—”
“It’s a tie I’ve had for a while now,” he informs her casually, even if his nervous posture betrays him. “I’ve never really had a good opportunity to wear it, though.”
Rebekah shakes her head, still completely dumbfounded. Her thoughts are raving too fast for her logic to keep up with. “Where did you get that?”
“I found it,” he murmurs then, low but gentle.
His eyes soften and Rebekah doesn’t have the words. “I lost it…”
“I know.”
She blinks and he grabs her hands to pull her closer. She allows it easily. His proximity warms her even though the night isn’t cold.
“Have you known this whole time?” Is the only question all the voices in her head can agree on.
Ben’s chuckle is a breath of fresh air that washes over her. “No. I mean, I had suspicions but they weren’t confirmed until the night we went to the ball together.”
“You’ve known since then?” He nods delicately like he’s afraid of spooking her. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”
He can only shrug. A wry smile makes a crooked show of his mouth. There’s a hint of self-deprecation there that she despises. “It was never the right time. We weren’t ready.”
That is a point she can’t argue. Even now there are things about herself she wishes she could alter, moments and experiences she wishes hadn’t changed her, but it feels like it’s taken her this long to free herself and find herself after drowning for so long in all the things she thought she had to do.
“But I’m ready now,” Ben assures her. This time, his voice is firm, optimistic even. “If you are.”
Rebekah isn’t sure what to say, so she decides to trust her actions to speak for her.
She kisses him beneath the moonlight, a clocktower, and a show of fireworks. As she does, she cannot help but laugh at herself and how crazy she’s been to have not seen him sooner.
