Summary: Anything written on your skin appears on your soulmate’s, leaving you to wonder whether your destiny can still be rewritten.
A/N: these fuckass summaries are gonna be the death of me... also i really enjoyed planning for this fic but now that i've done my final read i actually kinda hate it
Year 2:
Soulmates were a tricky business.
No one fully understood the magic behind it—how the universe could possibly decide, from the moment you were born, that there was one person out there meant specifically for you. Even now, it remained one of the greatest mysteries of the magical world. There were no rules you could study, no spells to influence it, no way to predict it.
All anyone really knew was this: somewhere out there existed a person whose magic matched yours so perfectly that the universe itself would one day intervene and make it known.
How it chose to do that, however, was entirely unpredictable.
Some people were born with timers on their wrists, ticking down to the exact second they would meet the person meant for them. Others lived their entire lives in muted shades of grey until they met their soulmate and the world burst into colour all at once. Some carried their soulmate’s first words etched permanently into their skin, waiting for the moment they would finally hear them spoken aloud.
For others, it came later.
Marks that appeared on first touch.
Marks that only revealed themselves after years of friendship.
Marks that didn’t appear at all until it was far too late to matter.
There was no pattern. No certainty. No way to guess what form your own bond would take—or when it would appear, or who it would tie you to.
And so, by your second year, you had stopped thinking about it too much.
Well... not entirely.
Like any other girl, there were nights when you lay awake staring at the ceiling, letting your mind wander to the inevitable moment when it would happen. You imagined the first meeting in painstaking detail—how everything would fall into place like the final pieces of a puzzle, how suddenly the world would make sense in a way it never had before, as if you had finally found where you were meant to be.
You imagined what it would feel like to be close to them.
To hold their hand.
To kiss them.
To run your fingers through their hair and feel them do the same to you.
You imagined quiet moments and laughter, whispered words meant only for the two of you, a future that felt certain in a way nothing else ever did.
And sometimes, buried into your pillow so no one could hear, you’d find yourself smiling—giddy with anticipation for a life that hadn’t even begun yet.
But it was easy not to dwell on it too much.
None of your friends had found their soulmates yet—not Hermione, not anyone—and that made it easier. It meant you weren’t falling behind. It meant there was still time.
When it happened, it would happen.
And when it did, everything would make sense.
Until then, your biggest problem remained your exams.
The Great Hall was silent in that suffocating, unnatural way it only ever was during exams.
Rows upon rows of desks stretched endlessly beneath the enchanted ceiling, each one placed with careful precision—far enough apart to make cheating impossible, close enough to remind you that you weren’t alone in your misery. The usual warmth of the hall felt stripped away, replaced by something rigid and tense.
The only sound was the uneven scratching of quills against parchment, echoing faintly in the vast space like a hundred tiny clocks ticking out your time.
You hunched over your Transfiguration paper, brow furrowed in concentration, your hand moving quickly but carefully—fast enough to keep up with your thoughts, slow enough to avoid smudging the ink.
You were on the last question.
Finally.
Relief flickered through you as you exhaled quietly, adjusting your grip on your quill. You leaned in slightly, beginning to write your answer, already thinking about how quickly you could leave once you were done—how good it would feel to be free of the stifling silence, the pressure, the weight of it all.
A shadow fell across your desk.
Your quill stilled mid-word.
“Miss (Y/N).” Came Professor McGonagall’s voice, low and composed.
You looked up sharply, your pulse jumping.
She stood just behind you, posture as straight as ever, hands folded neatly behind her back. Her expression gave nothing away—no irritation, no warmth, just that familiar, impenetrable calm.
“Yes, Professor?” You whispered, instinctively lowering your voice to be mindful of your fellow classmates. The last thing you needed was Hermione scolding you after the exam for making a ruckus while she was trying to focus.
Her gaze flicked briefly to your paper, lingering for just a moment, before returning to your face.
“I’ll need you to come with me.” She said quietly.
Your stomach dropped.
“Now, please.”
For a second, you just stared at her.
Confusion hit first—sharp and immediate.
Had you done something wrong? That didn’t make any sense. You hadn’t even finished your exam yet. Your eyes darted down to your parchment, then back up at her.
“…my exam—?”
“I will take it with us.” She replied smoothly, already reaching forward.
Before you could protest, she lifted the parchment from your desk, your unfinished answer still drying on the page. You stared up at her in surprise, your quill still clutched in your fingers, ink well sitting open on the desk.
Something wasn’t right.
Slowly, you pushed your chair back, the scrape of its legs against the stone floor sounding far too loud in the heavy silence. A few heads turned at the noise—quick, curious glances—but just as quickly snapped back down to their work.
After all these were your final exams, they didn't have the time for their focus to be broken.
Your heart began to beat a little faster as you stood, a faint, uneasy feeling settling in your chest.
“Follow me.”
You trailed after her down the narrow aisle between the desks, acutely aware of every step you took, every eye you could feel flicking toward you before darting away again.
The large doors of the Great Hall loomed ahead, growing closer with every step, and with them, that strange, creeping sense that something had shifted.
You didn’t know what you had done.
Still, you bit down hard on the inside of your cheek and clenched your fists at your sides, willing yourself not to cry from sheer anxiety. The past few weeks had already left your nerves stretched painfully thin.
Between late nights revising, early mornings spent cramming information into your head, and the constant pressure hanging over every second-year student during exam season, it felt as though every nerve ending in your body had been stripped raw.
Even now, as you followed Professor McGonagall through the corridors, you could feel your heart hammering painfully against your ribs. You dug your nails into your palms until they hurt, desperately trying to ground yourself, but the growing lump in your throat refused to disappear.
Professor McGonagall led you into an empty classroom adjacent to the Great Hall and quietly shut the door behind you. The click of the latch sounded far louder than it should have.
"Sit."
You obeyed immediately, lowering yourself into the nearest chair while she remained standing. For a long moment she simply looked at you, her expression unreadable save for a distinct note of disappointment that made your stomach sink even further.
"Miss (L/N)," She began, her voice calm and measured, "students are made aware at the beginning of every examination period that cheating results in an immediate Dreadful. Your parents will be notified and the staff will need to discuss whether you will be permitted to sit a reexamination or whether further disciplinary measures are necessary."
For a second, you genuinely thought you had misheard her.
The words didn't make sense.
You stared up at her blankly.
"Professor... what?"
Her expression remained unchanged.
"You were found in possession of examination materials during your Transfiguration exam."
"I wasn't copying."
The denial left your mouth before you could stop it.
McGonagall's gaze lowered pointedly and, confused, you followed it.
The moment you saw your leg, your entire body went cold.
Written across the skin of your calf in cramped black handwriting were notes. Definitions. Theories. Entire sections of information taken directly from your textbooks and condensed into neat little sentences. There had to be dozens of them, stretching across your skin in dense clusters of writing.
Your breath caught painfully in your throat.
"What the hell?"
Your mind immediately began scrambling for an explanation. Had someone done this while you slept? Had ink somehow transferred from your notes? Had you absentmindedly written on yourself during a revision session? None of it made sense. You had showered the night before.
In your panic, you failed to notice that this wasn't even your handwriting.
"No."
You immediately started rubbing at your skin.
"No, Professor, I didn't write this."
You scrubbed harder, panic making your movements frantic.
"I swear I didn't."
The notes didn't budge.
Your palms were beginning to sweat, but the ink remained exactly where it was, stubborn and unmoving.
"It's not even coming off!"
The last few words came out dangerously close to a sob.
You looked back up at McGonagall, your vision beginning to blur around the edges as tears gathered in your eyes. Everything suddenly felt horribly unfair. You had spent weeks preparing for these exams. You had stayed up late memorizing definitions, quizzed yourself until your head hurt, worried yourself sick over every possible outcome.
"I swear I didn't do this, Professor," you said, your voice wobbling despite your best efforts. "I promise. Please don't fail me. I studied so hard."
The tears escaped before you could stop them.
One moment you were trying to hold yourself together and the next you were crying outright, fat tears rolled down your cheeks while the tiny amount of mascara you'd put on that morning in an attempt to look slightly less exhausted began smudging around your eyes. The embarrassment only made it worse. You couldn't remember the last time you had cried in front of a teacher, but now you couldn't seem to stop.
It was only through your tears that you noticed something change in McGonagall's expression. The disappointment that had been there moments ago had vanished completely, replaced by something that looked remarkably like realization. Her eyes flickered briefly from the notes scrawled across your skin back to your face and you watched as the pieces seemed to fall into place behind them.
"Miss (L/N)," She said, her voice considerably gentler than it had been a moment ago, "it would appear that I owe you an apology."
You blinked up at her through watery eyes, still struggling to catch your breath.
"What?"
"I believe there has been a misunderstanding."
For a moment you simply stared at her, the words refusing to make sense. A misunderstanding? Five minutes ago she had been discussing whether you would be forced to repeat the year.
"Once you've composed yourself," McGonagall continued, clearing her throat and smoothing a hand over her robes, "You may return to the examination hall and complete your exam."
The room fell silent.
You looked down at the notes still covering your skin and then back up at her, trying to understand what had changed. The writing was still there. The evidence hadn't disappeared. If anything, it seemed even more obvious now than it had before. Yet whatever conclusion McGonagall had reached was apparently enough to completely alter the situation.
Before you could ask any further questions, however, she was already moving toward the door.
By the time you had managed to stop crying and make yourself somewhat presentable again, your eyes were still red and your cheeks still blotchy. You clutched your exam paper tightly against your chest as you made your way back toward the Great Hall, still trying to piece together what had happened.
The corridor ahead was empty save for two approaching figures.
At first you barely paid them any attention.
Professor Snape was walking briskly in your direction, his dark robes billowing dramatically behind him as they always seemed to. Beside him walked another student, hands shoved into his pockets and expression thunderous enough to make most people step out of his way.
Mattheo Riddle.
At first, you barely paid attention. Then your eyes caught on the black smudges beneath his eyes—dark, uneven streaks that clung to his lashes and marked the skin beneath them. Mascara. Your mascara.
You stopped walking.
Mattheo stopped too.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The corridor around you felt strangely distant, as though everything else had faded into a muffled blur while the two of you stood suspended in something sharp and disorienting.
His gaze moved over your face, lingering on your red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Slowly—almost visibly—understanding began to settle across both of your expressions at the same time, like the final pieces of a puzzle clicking into place.
The notes that hadn’t been written by you but had appeared on your skin anyway.
The mascara that hadn’t been applied by him but was now smeared across his face.
The reason Professor Snape was escorting him down the corridor.
His expression darkened first.
Yours followed not long after.
You had never met him before. Never spoken to him.
And yet somehow, within minutes of discovering he was your soulmate, Mattheo Riddle had nearly gotten you expelled.
As he continued to glare at you from across the corridor, looking every bit as offended by the situation as you felt, you came to one very simple conclusion.
The universe had an absolutely horrific sense of humour.
Year 6:
It was quiet in the dormitory—far too quiet for a weekday morning.
You frowned slightly, still half-asleep as you burrowed deeper beneath your blankets, turning your face further into the pillow. Usually by now the room would already be alive with noise: drawers slamming shut, sleepy complaints about unfinished homework, someone inevitably losing a sock five minutes before class. But there was none of it. No chatter. No rushing footsteps.
Which could only mean one thing.
You had woken up too early.
A pleased little sigh escaped you as you snuggled further into the warmth of your bed, already drifting back toward sleep. Maybe you had another hour left. Maybe—
“(Y/N) (L/N), FOR GODRIC’S SAKE, WAKE UP! YOU’VE ALREADY MISSED BREAKFAST!”
You bolted upright so fast you nearly headbutted the bedpost.
“WHAT?!” You shrieked, voice rough with sleep as panic shot through you all at once, “Hermione, why didn’t you wake me?!”
“I DID, YOU TEA TOWEL!”
The insult barely registered as you threw your blankets off yourself and stumbled out of bed in a frenzy, hair a complete mess and heart racing with the immediate horror of being late. Your bag was still unpacked from the night before, half your books hanging out of it as you rushed around the room trying to pull yourself together.
“Why didn’t anyone shake me harder?!” You complained, yanking your uniform shirt over your head inside out before realizing and swearing under your breath.
Hermione, already fully dressed and exasperatingly put together, didn’t even look up from stuffing parchment into her bag, “I did! It's not my fault you sleep like the dead.”
You huffed, grabbing your skirt and tugging it on crookedly as you rushed toward the mirror, mentally planning the fastest possible route to class. If you skipped properly brushing your hair and just fixed it on the way—maybe if you brushed your teeth in the bathroom nearest the Charms corridor—
And then you looked up.
Your stomach dropped so suddenly it felt like the floor had disappeared beneath you.
For a moment, all you could do was stare.
Your own reflection stared back at you in equal horror, pale and frozen and impossibly awake now, but you barely noticed the expression on your face because your eyes were locked on the red mark pressed against your cheek.
A lipstick stain.
Bright. Smudged.
Unmistakably shaped like the imprint of someone’s mouth.
Your breath caught.
There was another near the corner of your lips, blurred slightly like it had been kissed there carelessly. One against your jaw. Another lower down, just beneath your ear.
Dread began settling into you slowly, horribly, piece by piece.
“No.” You whispered.
Your hands started shaking.
“No, no—”
You turned slightly toward the mirror, fingers fumbling desperately with the collar of your shirt as you pulled it aside.
More.
Faint red marks scattered across your skin, disappearing beneath the fabric of your clothes. Some were clearer than others; some were smeared, dragged slightly, as though whoever had left them behind had done so thoughtlessly. Casually.
You stared at them, your reflection blurring around the edges as tears began burning in your eyes.
Your throat tightened painfully.
The room suddenly felt too small, too warm, your chest caving inward as realization settled fully over you.
“)Y/N), come on, class starts in—”
Hermione stopped mid-sentence.
You didn’t turn around, but you saw her expression shift in the mirror from annoyance to shock. Her eyes caught on the marks scattered across your neck and collarbone, and the look on her face softened so quickly it made something inside you crack further.
“Oh.”
You squeezed your eyes shut.
A heavy silence settled across the room. Then you heard Hermione approach slowly, carefully, like she was afraid one wrong movement would shatter you completely. She stopped just behind you, her reflection appearing over your shoulder, and when you finally forced yourself to look up again you saw nothing but sympathy written all over her face.
“Oh, (Y/N),” She said softly, and somehow the gentleness in her voice hurt worse than the marks themselves, “I’m so sorry.”
You swallowed hard and forced yourself to inhale, then exhale, trying desperately to hold yourself together.
“It’s fine,” You said immediately, too quickly, your voice unnaturally flat, “It’s not like I liked him anyway.”
The second the words left your mouth, your chin trembled.
Hermione’s expression crumpled.
And suddenly you couldn’t do it anymore.
A broken sound escaped your throat before you could stop it, and then the tears were falling all at once, hot and uncontrollable as the ache in your chest finally split wide open. You covered your mouth with your hand like that could somehow hold the sobs back, but it was useless. Your knees nearly gave out beneath you as weeks and months of buried hope came crashing down all at once.
Hermione caught you before you could fall properly, pulling you into her arms immediately.
And the second she did, you broke completely.
You cried into her shoulder so hard it hurt, fingers clutching desperately at the fabric of her jumper while humiliation and heartbreak tore through you in waves.
Your soulmate had slept with someone else.
A few mornings later, when Hermione sat down at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, she wasn't remotely offended when the eyes of her friends immediately flicked over her shoulder.
It had become something of a routine.
Every day for the past week, someone would look up when she arrived, expecting to find you trailing behind her. Every day their faces would fall when they realized she was alone.
Just as she was today.
Harry was the first to break the silence, "She still won't come down?"
Hermione's grip tightened slightly around her spoon.
The concern on his face mirrored exactly how she felt.
You hadn't attended a single class all week. The first two days had been the worst. You had cried until you physically exhausted yourself, until your body finally gave out and sleep claimed you against your will. By the following morning, you'd developed a fever bad enough that Hermione had practically dragged you to the Hospital Wing herself.
Madam Pomfrey had taken one look at your blotchy face, red-rimmed eyes, and dangerously high temperature before ordering you into a bed and refusing to hear arguments.
Hermione had stayed beside you for as long as she'd been allowed.
She remembered watching you sleep fitfully beneath white sheets, occasionally stirring only to curl further into yourself. She remembered the way your hand would sometimes move unconsciously toward your neck, fingers brushing against skin where the marks had long since faded.
Eventually Madam Pomfrey had forced Hermione out, insisting there was nothing more she could do.
Now several days later, the fever had broken.
But you still hadn't left your room.
Hermione shook her head, "No."
Hermione sighed, reaching for her tea, though her attention was nowhere near her breakfast. Her gaze swept across the Great Hall, not aimlessly skimming over the hundreds of students filling the room, but locking onto its target almost immediately like a heat-seeking missile.
Mattheo Riddle.
He sat at the Slytherin table with his friends, laughing at something one of them had said, completely at ease, looking every bit like he hadn't a single worry in the world. The sight of him sitting there so carelessly, smiling like life had handed him every reason to, made Hermione irrationally want to march across the hall, grab him by the ears, and squeeze his head until it popped like an unsightly pimple.
He had absolutely no idea.
No idea that his soulmate hadn't left her bed in days.
No idea that she'd cried herself into a fever.
No idea that Hermione had spent hours sitting beside her, listening to her sob until she had nothing left in her, only to watch her stare blankly at the canopy above her bed as though she'd forgotten how to exist.
Her jaw tightened.
"Look at him," She muttered bitterly, her eyes boring so intensely into the side of his head that she was almost disappointed when he didn't spontaneously burst into flames, "I spent half the week consoling her, and he's sitting over there like he's the bloody king of the world."
Then, she looked back down into the untouched cup of tea in front of her, watching her own furious reflection ripple across its surface. The anger was still there, burning hot beneath her skin, but it had long since become tangled with something far more unbearable.
Helplessness.
Because no matter how angry she was, it wouldn't undo what had happened.
It wouldn't stop you from shutting yourself away in your dormitory, curtains drawn around your bed, convinced that facing four wooden bedposts was somehow easier than facing the rest of the world.
She felt the sting behind her eyes before she realized she was blinking a little too often.
"I can't believe someone like her is supposed to end up with someone like him." She murmured, her voice losing all of its earlier bite.
She absentmindedly stabbed at her pancakes with her fork, skewering a lone berry in the process without even noticing.
"She's the sweetest, kindest, most selfless person I've ever met," Hermione continued quietly, swallowing around the lump that had formed in her throat, "She'd do absolutely anything for the people she loves, and somehow..." She gave a humorless laugh, shaking her head, "Somehow he's the person the universe chose for her."
Finally, Hermione let out a slow, defeated sigh.
"How could the universe be so cruel?"
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance, but neither of them answered.
Because what could they possibly say?
Afterall, they had no idea what it was like to be rejected by your soulmate.
Your head felt impossibly heavy.
When you'd finally cried yourself to sleep the night before, you'd hoped that maybe—just maybe—you'd wake up feeling even a little bit lighter.
Instead, it felt as though someone had stuffed your head full of damp cotton.
Everything was muted.
You could see the familiar shape of your dormitory around you, the sunlight spilling lazily through the windows, painting warm patches across the wooden floor, but none of it felt real. If someone had asked you to name half a dozen things in your own room, you weren't entirely convinced you could have done it. Your thoughts drifted in and out without ever quite settling long enough to grasp them.
Outside, Hogwarts carried on as though nothing had happened.
Somewhere below the tower, students laughed as they crossed the courtyard on their way back from breakfast. Every so often, a shrill whistle carried in through the open window, followed by the distant roar of voices from the Quidditch pitch.
Life went on.
It always did.
But inside your dormitory, it felt as though time itself had stopped.
Like you were sitting inside a vacuum, sealed away from the rest of the castle, where even the sound of your own breathing seemed impossibly far away.
You hadn't even realized someone was knocking.
The sound barely registered through the haze clouding your mind, so faint and distant that you mistook it for part of a dream. It wasn't until the door slowly creaked open that you finally stirred, letting out a weary sigh without even bothering to look up.
"Hermione," You mumbled into your pillow, your voice hoarse from days of crying, "Please... I don't want breakfast."
There was a brief pause.
"Well," Came a decidedly unfamiliar voice, "It's a good thing Chocolate Frogs aren't considered breakfast."
Your eyes snapped open.
Slowly, you pushed yourself upright, blinking through the fog in your head until the figure standing sheepishly in your doorway came into focus.
Messy ginger hair.
Hands buried deep in his pockets.
A crooked smile that looked like it wasn't entirely sure whether it belonged there.
"...Fred?"
The way you said his name made him chuckle softly.
Not because it was funny, exactly, but because your tone carried that slight undercurrent of cautiousness, like you were trying to work out whether you were looking at Fred Weasley or his identical twin.
"It's me," He assured you with an easy grin, "George is considerably uglier."
Despite everything, the corner of your mouth twitched.
Fred caught it but, to his credit, didn't point it out. He simply closed the door quietly behind him and wandered further into the dormitory, his hands still buried in the pockets of his jumper as though he were only stopping by for a casual chat.
Although, you knew better than to believe that.
He was here for something.
You just couldn't work out what.
Had Hermione sent him? Had she somehow decided that Fred's ridiculous sense of humour might succeed where she had failed? More importantly, how in Merlin's name had he even managed to get into the girls' dormitory in the first place?
"...What are you doing here?" You asked.
The question left your mouth more out of politeness than genuine curiosity.
Truthfully, you didn't really care.
Whether Fred was here or not, whether he'd come to cheer you up or drag you to breakfast or simply stare at you until you spoke, all you wanted was to be left alone again. So you settled back against your headboard, waiting for whatever explanation he had prepared so you could nod absentmindedly, mumble something about still being tired, and hope he'd take the hint.
Fred scratched the back of his neck.
"I don't really know," He admitted after a moment with a small shrug, "I heard Hermione talking about you downstairs."
He finally pulled his hands from his pockets.
A handful of Chocolate Frog boxes tumbled into his palms.
"I heard she was worried." He looked down at the collection of sweets before giving one shoulder another little shrug, "Next thing I knew, I was standing outside your door."
He crossed the room and sat down carefully on the edge of your bed.
Instinctively, you tugged your cocoon of blankets out from beneath him, unwilling to surrender even that small comfort. Fred pretended not to notice. Instead, he simply dropped the Chocolate Frogs into your lap one by one.
"I figured," He said, "if nothing else, chocolate rarely makes things worse."
You stared down at them for a second before absentmindedly picking one up and peeling open the box.
"Whatever Hermione's worried about..." You murmured, carefully unfolding the cardboard, "...it isn't going to happen."
The chocolate frog immediately sprang from your hands.
You watched it bounce across the dormitory floor, disappearing beneath someone's bed but you paid no heed, fishing the card from the now-empty box instead.
Helga Hufflepuff.
Nice.
"I just wanted some time to be alone," You said quietly, your thumb tracing absent circles over the edge of the card, "Some time to think. You wouldn't understand."
Fred's smile faded.
"Oh," He said, leaning back on his hands, "Believe me."
His eyes drifted toward the window for a moment.
"I know exactly what that's like."
You froze, your thumb absentmindedly tracing the edge of the Nicolas Flamel card as you silently cursed your own stupidity.
Of course.
You had completely forgotten who you were talking to.
Everyone knew Fred Weasley's story.
It had been impossible not to.
It had spread through Hogwarts like wildfire the day the twins turned sixteen and discovered, to the absolute bewilderment of the entire school, that they shared the same soulmate mark. The same name inked onto both of their wrists.
Angelina.
No one had known what to make of it. How could the universe make a mistake? It wasn't supposed to.
Yet somehow, two brothers had been promised the same girl.
In the end, Angelina had chosen George.
No one blamed her. She'd simply followed her heart.
And just like that, Fred had become the boy without a soulmate.
What followed had been painful to watch.
Every passing week seemed to chip away at something that had once felt unbreakable. Fred and George had always existed as a pair. Joined at the hip, people liked to joke. Before that, joined by an umbilical cord. There had never been one without the other.
It had been heartbreaking watching the distance grow between the twins afterwards. Not all at once, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, until people realized Fred no longer occupied the seat beside George in the Great Hall. They stopped seeing them sneaking through corridors together after curfew. Their jokes became less frequent, their laughter less shared.
Fred simply couldn't bear to watch the girl he'd spent years believing was destined to love him fall into his brother's arms instead.
Eventually, time had done what time always did.
The sharp edges had dulled.
The twins laughed together again. They pulled pranks together. They looked, from the outside at least, like themselves again. But anyone paying close enough attention could tell they were never quite the same.
How could they be?
Their seemingly inseverable brotherhood had been eclipsed by an ineffable bond.
Soulmates.
It was no longer Fred and George, the terrible terrors. Now, it was George and Angelina, the star-crossed lovers, and Fred, who had been left behind.
"I'm sorry." You whispered, the apology slipping out before you could stop it.
Fred's eyes met yours.
"So am I."
He didn't elaborate.
He didn't have to.
And for the first time in days, you felt the glass jar you had trapped yourself in begin to crack.
This whole time, you'd convinced yourself that hiding in your dormitory was helping. As long as you stayed within these four walls, you could pretend the world outside had stopped moving. Pretend that morning had never happened.
Reality settled over you with unbearable clarity.
That was what this was, wasn't it?
Rejection.
Mattheo had known exactly who you were. He'd known that every mark left on his skin would bloom across yours. He'd known you would wake up wearing the evidence of his choices.
And he'd done it anyway.
The thought hollowed you out.
Your entire life, you'd been told that soulmates were certainty. That somewhere in the world there was one person who would choose you above everyone else because the universe itself had decided you belonged together.
So what did it mean when they didn't?
If even your soulmate could look at you and still choose someone else...
Where exactly did that leave you?
Slowly, you lifted your eyes from the card to Fred, who was sitting beside you now, close enough that your shoulders nearly brushed, his gaze already fixed on you.
Your heart ached.
Because the answer to your unvoiced question was written all over his face.
He was every bit as heartbroken as you were.
Just as lost.
Just as unsure of where he fit into a universe that had promised him one thing, only to hand him another.
It hurt him every time he saw George with Angelina. You knew it did. No matter how much he loved his brother, no matter how genuinely happy he wanted to be for him, there had to be a small part of him that wondered why it hadn't been him.
Why fate had bothered writing her name onto his skin at all.
And you knew, with sickening certainty, that the next time you saw Mattheo...
It would tear you apart in exactly the same way.
Fred's expression softened as he noticed your eyes beginning to fill again.
He offered you a small, sympathetic smile.
"Well..." He said, giving one shoulder an exaggerated shrug, "At least we've got each other."
A laugh escaped you before you could stop it. It was watery and quiet, immediately chased by the tear that finally slipped down your cheek. Fred grinned a little wider, looking entirely too pleased with himself for managing to get even the tiniest laugh out of you.
"I suppose the reject bin isn't completely empty."
"No," Fred agreed, "Turns out it's got surprisingly good company."
Turns out misery really did love company.
It was almost pathetic, in a way.
The only reason you had finally been able to leave your room, to walk back into the Great Hall, to sit through classes without feeling like the walls were caving in around you, was because you'd discovered you weren't the only person carrying around this strangely specific kind of heartbreak.
Your chest still tightened whenever Mattheo walked into a room. Every accidental glance across a corridor still left you feeling hollowed out from the inside, wondering how someone who was supposedly destined to love you had found it so easy to choose somebody else instead.
But sitting beside Fred somehow made it easier to breathe.
You supposed anyone watching from the outside would've found it to be the most obvious outcome imaginable.
Birds of a feather.
Two people who had somehow fallen through the cracks of destiny naturally gravitating toward one another.
Before long, spending time with Fred stopped feeling like something you consciously chose to do and instead became part of your routine. You'd find him waiting outside your classroom without either of you having planned it, or he'd drop into the empty seat beside you at breakfast as though it had always belonged to him.
Sometimes you talked about soulmates.
Most of the time, you didn't.
And somehow, those were your favourite conversations.
You hadn't realized just how grateful you'd become for his presence until one morning at breakfast when Harry slid onto the bench opposite you, looking unusually flustered and whispered, "I met my soulmate last night."
Thankfully, Hermione's excited gasp and Ron's loud, "You what?!" completely drowned out the sound of your breath catching in your throat.
For a brief, horrible second, it felt as though you had left your own body.
The conversation continued around you in muffled voices while you watched it all unfold from somewhere far away, like you were observing it through thick glass. Hermione was already peppering Harry with questions. Harry, red-faced and grinning despite himself, tried unsuccessfully to answer them both at once.
You just... watched.
Until something warm wrapped gently around your hand beneath the table and your attention snapped back. Without saying a word, you laced your fingers through his beneath the tablecloth, hidden from everyone else.
The knot in your stomach loosened.
Not completely. But just enough so that when you turned back to Harry, the smile on your face no longer felt so forced.
"Congratulations, Harry," You said softly, "I'm really happy for you."
Harry's smile faltered.
Only then did it seem to occur to him what he'd just blurted out—and who he'd blurted it out in front of.
A flicker of guilt passed across his face behind his glasses.
"Oh, (Y/N), I didn't—I wasn't thinking—"
You shook your head before he could finish, "It's okay."
And surprisingly...
It was.
Harry relaxed, offering you a small, grateful smile before Hermione immediately launched into another question, successfully stealing his attention once more.
Only then did you turn your head.
Fred was already looking at you.
Your joined hands still rested beneath the table, his thumb absentmindedly brushing across your knuckles.
"I just can't believe how much time I've wasted."
Your voice was quiet as you stared up at the canopy of Fred's bed, watching the afternoon sunlight dance lazily across the faded red fabric. Beside you, Fred lay with one arm tucked behind his head, the other dangling over the edge of the mattress. He turned his head slightly.
"Hm?"
It wasn't often the conversation drifted back to soulmates anymore.
Somehow, the two of you had become remarkably good at avoiding the very thing that had brought you together in the first place. But every now and then, usually when the castle had gone quiet around you, one of you would bring it up again.
And somehow it was always easier talking to Fred than anyone else.
"I've never even been on a date," You admitted with a humourless laugh, "Can you believe that?"
Fred's eyebrows lifted.
"I just... wasted so much time." You sighed, picking absentmindedly at a loose thread in the blanket. "I kept thinking there was no point. Why bother dating when the universe was supposedly going to hand me the perfect person eventually?"
You shook your head.
"I was so convinced that one day everything would just... happen."
A small smile tugged at your lips.
"I suppose, in retrospect, that's a rather ridiculous way to live."
Fred was quiet for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"I get it."
You looked over at him.
"Before my soulmate mark appeared," He continued, "I never really bothered trying either. I always figured I'd meet my soulmate eventually, so whoever I dated beforehand wouldn't really matter."
He let out a small breath through his nose.
"And after..." His smile turned a little sad, "Well, there wasn't much point then either."
You understood immediately.
"Everyone already had someone they were meant to end up with."
"Exactly."
He shrugged, "It felt like borrowing someone else's future."
Silence settled comfortably between you.
"I know exactly what you mean," You murmured, "Even if I'd somehow found someone I actually liked. It would've only been a matter of time before they found their soulmate."
"And then I'd just be..." You trailed off, "Temporary."
Fred didn't say anything.
He didn't have to.
Because he'd spent the last year feeling exactly the same way.
You groaned dramatically, throwing an arm over your eyes, "I just want to go on a date for once."
Fred snorted.
"Is that too much to ask?" You bemoaned.
"I don't even want anything extravagant," You continued, finally sitting upright since the topic had become important enough to warrant an actual discussion. You gestured vaguely with your hands, trying to paint the picture in the air between you, "Just… one completely ordinary date."
Fred turned his head to look at you.
"I want to wear a pretty dress," You admitted, counting on your fingers, "I want to spend far too long doing my hair, even though it'll probably end up looking exactly the same as it did before. I want someone to bring me flowers."
The last part made Fred's eyebrows climb.
"...Flowers?"
You frowned at him as though he'd just said something outrageously offensive.
"Yes. Flowers."
"You've just spent the last minute insisting you don't want anything extravagant."
"They're flowers. It's the bare minimum."
A comfortable silence settled over the room again. You flopped back against the mattress with an exaggerated sigh, staring up at the canopy above while Fred continued looking at the ceiling beside you.
"I just..." You murmured after a while, your voice softer now, "I wish I knew what it felt like."
"What?"
"To have butterflies."
The admission felt oddly embarrassing.
"To get excited because someone asked me out. To spend the whole day wondering what they're going to think when they see me. To hold someone's hand because they wanted to hold mine." You laughed quietly at yourself, "I don't even care whether it's life-changing anymore."
You swallowed, the words catching slightly in your throat.
“I just wanted to know what normal feels like.”
For a moment, Fred didn’t respond.
He just lay there beside you, one arm tucked behind his head, eyes fixed lazily on the canopy above as though he were turning your words over somewhere quieter than conversation. The pause stretched longer than you expected it to—long enough that you almost convinced yourself he wasn’t going to answer at all, that the moment had passed and you’d said too much again.
Then, almost absentmindedly, he spoke.
“So let’s go on one.”
You frowned, turning your head slightly, having forgotten how the conversation had even ended, “...Go on what?”
“A date.”
That made you sit up a little more properly, the word feeling strangely out of place in the softness of the room, “A date?”
“Seems like the obvious solution.” He added, as though he were suggesting something as simple as going for a walk.
You blinked at him, trying to make sense of his expression, “...With who?”
Fred looked almost insulted.
"With me."
Silence.
Not the comfortable kind this time.
The air between you shifted—just slightly. You became acutely aware of the space between your shoulders, the way your fingers were curled into the blanket, the way Fred didn’t seem to notice any of it at all.
He, meanwhile, looked completely unconcerned with the fact that he had just suggested something that felt like it should be impossible to say out loud.
“I mean…” He continued after a beat, shrugging one shoulder as if it were obvious, “Think about it.”
You hesitated, “I am.”
“We’re both sitting here complaining we’ve never really dated anyone.”
“Yes…”
“We’re both catastrophically single.”
“Unfortunately.” You muttered, despite yourself.
“We both want to know what all the fuss is about.”
“I suppose.”
“So…” He spread his hands slightly, palms up, as though presenting the most logical conclusion in the world, “Why don’t we just take each other? Scratch the itch a bit.”
You looked away for a second, down at your hands where they were picking absently at the edge of the blanket, “I don’t know…” You admitted quietly.
Fred didn’t push. He rarely did.
Instead, he shifted slightly closer—not enough to crowd you, just enough that his presence was harder to ignore.
“You said you wanted to wear a pretty dress.”
“I did.” You murmured.
“You said you wanted a normal date.”
That made you glance back at him again.
Your voice came out softer this time, almost uncertain, “I do.”
A pause.
The kind that felt like something was being decided inside it.
Fred’s expression didn’t change much, but his voice gentled.
“So let me take you on one.”
Even though you were almost entirely certain Fred had suggested the date as a joke, you found yourself surprisingly nervous when the day finally arrived.
Not because you expected anything to happen.
It wasn't really a date, after all.
Not a real one.
Just two rejects pretending, for a few hours, that the universe hadn't forgotten about them.
Still, you couldn't deny there was something undeniably exciting about getting ready for it.
You stood in front of the mirror for far longer than you cared to admit, smoothing invisible creases from your clothes before immediately finding new ones to fuss over. Your hair had already been redone twice, and you were currently debating whether it looked better tucked behind your ears or left loose around your shoulders.
You had practically licked your lips dry, wanting to put on just a little bit of gloss, if not to look good then at least to stop you from worrying them so much.
But third year had taught you that makeup simply wasn't worth the argument.
The memory still made you grimace.
You had gotten a tube of cherry lip gloss as an impulse purchase from Hogsmeade. The bottle was just so cute and the colour was just right and it smelt like a cherry pie.
You'd worn it exactly once before Mattheo had cornered you in a corridor, positively livid over the matching sheen that had mysteriously appeared on his own lips.
The argument had been spectacular.
You'd shouted.
He'd shouted louder.
By the end of it both your cheeks had been burning, partly from anger and partly from the sheer humiliation.
After that, you'd quietly switched to glamour charms.
You shook your head, willing the memory to leave your mind. A light spritz of perfume followed, and then another after you convinced yourself the first one hadn't been enough.
This wasn't a date.
You reminded yourself of that several times while changing outfits.
And yet, by the time you finally slipped out of Gryffindor Tower—carefully timing your escape before Hermione and the others returned from lunch so nobody could make a spectacle of it—you couldn't deny the flutter of anticipation low in your stomach.
Your first date.
Fake though it may have been.
Fred was already waiting beside the Black Lake when you arrived. The moment he spotted you, his face broke into an easy grin. He awkwardly straightened where he stood before holding out a small bouquet of hand-picked wildflowers.
A smile spread across your face before you could stop it.
You accepted them carefully, bringing them close enough to catch their sweet scent, asking with a teasing lilt to your tone, "Now whose Herbology project did you ruin by nicking these?"
Fred clutched dramatically at his chest.
"I would never."
"No?"
"I'll have you know these were ethically sourced. Well, a bit of unpaid labour." He said, showing you the slight dirt that was still left on the tips of his fingers.
You grinned, leaning to give him a quick peck on the cheek, "There, paid for in full."
"So..." You said, looking up at him, "What's the plan? It isn't swimming, is it? Because I spent entirely too long on my hair."
His eyes flicked over said hair for only the briefest moment.
"It looks nice."
You blinked.
"...Thank you."
The words came so casually that he didn't even seem to realize he'd said them aloud. Then his usual grin returned, "And don't worry. I've got something much more special in mind."
Rather than reassuring you, that somehow made you considerably more suspicious.
Fred simply laughed before turning on his heel and beckoning for you to follow. He led you around the edge of the Black Lake and toward a dense cluster of trees you'd never paid much attention to before.
"I thought we'd collectively agreed wandering into mysterious forests was a terrible idea after the centaurs last year." You remarked as you ducked beneath a low branch he held out of your way.
"We did."
"And?"
"We also established I was the worse student between the two of us."
You rolled your eyes, "Can't argue with that."
A few moments later he stopped.
Nestled between several thick tree trunks was what appeared to be nothing more than a tiny tunnel woven entirely from vines and ivy.
Before you had time to question it, Fred crouched down and disappeared inside.
You stared after him.
"...Bit brazen of you to expect a girl to get on her knees on the first date, don't you think, Weasley?"
His laugh echoed back through the tunnel.
"Oh, come on."
"I'm simply making observations."
"Get in here, (Y/N)."
Still muttering dramatically under your breath, you crouched down and crawled after him. The tunnel only lasted a few feet.
The first thing you noticed as your head emerged from the other side was the sunlight. Bright summer sunshine spilled across your face exactly as expected.
The second thing you noticed was the cold.
A sharp, winter chill immediately kissed your cheeks and nipped at the end of your nose.
You blinked.
Then looked up.
Your breath caught.
Hidden away beyond the curtain of vines was a tiny clearing unlike anywhere else on the Hogwarts grounds.
Wildflowers carpeted the earth in every imaginable colour while rabbits darted lazily through the grass, entirely unconcerned by your arrival. Golden afternoon light poured through the canopy overhead, making the entire place glow like something lifted straight from a fairy tale.
But none of that was what stole your breath.
At the very centre of the clearing lay a lake.
Perfectly still.
Perfectly frozen.
A sheet of flawless ice sat beneath the blazing summer sun as though winter itself had been trapped inside this tiny corner of the world.
"...What on earth..."
"Amazing, isn't it?"
You turned to find Fred watching you rather than the lake.
His grin was quieter now. There was still that unmistakable stretch of pride across his face as he took in your gobsmacked reaction, but beneath it lingered a hint of fondness that sent a slight flush to your cheeks, one you stubbornly insisted was caused by the cold.
"I was mucking about here in second year," He admitted with an embarrassed scratch at the back of his neck, "George and I were trying to invent a product that could make it snow indoors."
"And?"
"And... I may have perpetually frozen the entire lake."
You stared at him, "You may have?"
He shrugged, "I got scared I'd be in trouble if anyone found it."
"So you..."
"So, I never told anyone."
As he spoke, he reached out and absentmindedly cast a quiet Scourgify over your clothes, brushing away the bits of moss and leaves that had collected while crawling through the tunnel.
His fingers paused near your shoulder.
"There."
He gently plucked a tiny twig from your hair before tucking a loose strand behind your ear with absent familiarity.
"So..." You looked back at the lake, "You've never shown anyone this?"
"No."
"...Not even George?"
Fred's smile softened.
He shook his head.
"No."
Something warm unfurled low in your chest.
Warmer than the summer sun beating down on you.
You felt it.
The butterflies.
Walking back toward the castle felt strangely bittersweet.
Like stepping out of a storybook.
The hidden clearing disappeared behind the curtain of vines the moment you stepped through it, swallowed once again by the forest as though it had never been there at all. If you hadn't still felt the lingering chill clinging to your clothes, you might have convinced yourself you'd imagined the entire afternoon.
Your nose stung from the cold.
Your cheeks, however, had turned pink from hours spent laughing beneath the summer sun.
The two of you had spent hours on that frozen lake.
By the time the sun had begun sinking below the treeline, painting the ice in shades of amber and gold, the two of you had been too exhausted to do much more than sit side by side on the frozen shore, talking until the growing darkness reminded you that professors generally frowned upon students disappearing into enchanted forests after curfew.
Now, the familiar warmth of the castle wrapped around you as the heavy oak doors swung shut behind you.
The sudden change in temperature made your fingers tingle unpleasantly as feeling slowly returned to them.
A comfortable silence settled between you as you wandered through the entrance hall.
Students passed around you in little groups, chatting animatedly over dinner plans and unfinished essays, but neither of you made any move toward joining them.
Eventually, you reached the foot of the marble staircase.
You turned toward Fred.
He'd been unusually quiet for the last few minutes.
The easy confidence he'd carried all afternoon had somehow disappeared somewhere between the lake and the castle, replaced instead by something unexpectedly hesitant. His hands had found the pockets of his jumper again and he rocked back slightly on his heels before clearing his throat.
"(Y/N)..."
"Hm?"
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"So..."
You waited.
"I know..." He let out a small, awkward laugh, "I know this wasn't exactly a date-date. But…" His eyes found yours again, "I had a really good time."
Something in your chest fluttered.
"And unless I've completely misread today..." He continued carefully, "I think maybe you did too."
You did.
Far more than you'd expected to.
"So..." He took a small breath, "Unless I've made an absolute fool of myself here, I was wondering if maybe—"
"Let's go on a second date, Fred."
The words escaped before your brain had the chance to stop them.
You hadn't meant to interrupt him.
Truthfully, you'd been rather enjoying the exceedingly rare spectacle of Fred Weasley stumbling over his own words. It was oddly endearing watching someone who always seemed to have a joke ready suddenly become hopelessly tongue-tied.
Unfortunately, your own anticipation had won the race.
Silence settled between you. Fred simply stared. For one wonderfully long moment, he looked completely dumbfounded.
Then, slowly, a grin began tugging at the corners of his mouth.
It spread across his face before he could stop it, bright enough that you watched him actively try to suppress it.
"Well," He drawled, folding his arms as though he hadn't just been struck speechless, "Someone's certainly getting ahead of herself, isn't she?"
You folded your own arms in mock offence.
"Oh?"
"I hadn't even finished asking yet."
"You were taking too long."
He took one thoughtful look at you before his grin returned in full force.
"...So," He tilted his head ever so slightly, "Same time next week?"
Fred was always good at date ideas.
You knew that much by now.
Every time you met him, there was something planned—something a little ridiculous, a little exhausting, and always, without fail, something that made it impossible for you to think about anything else except how much you were laughing.
But with the July heat pressing down over Hogwarts like a heavy, unrelenting spell, even Fred’s usual energy had begun to soften at the edges.
The castle itself felt sluggish. Corridors held onto warmth long after sunset, windows stayed permanently open, and even the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall seemed stuck in an endless stretch of pale, hazy blue.
But it seemed the unbearable heat had given Fred an idea for another date.
Which was how you found yourself standing at the edge of the Black Lake in a cute bikini you’d been waiting all summer to wear, your shoes discarded somewhere in the grass behind you, watching him attempt to skip stones across the water.
He managed one bounce.
The stone immediately sank.
“Hm,” Fred said thoughtfully, staring at the ripples like they had personally betrayed him, “I’ve gotten considerably worse at that.”
“You were never good.”
“I distinctly remember being excellent.”
“That’s the heat talking. It’s cooked your brain.”
He gasped, pressing a hand to his chest in mock offence.
“You wound me.”
“I try.”
He looked at you, a sinister smile on his face that gave you a feeling that he was planning something, “Well, I try harder.”
You barely had time to process the warning in his grin before you felt it—a sharp splash against your shoulders, cold water exploding across your skin.
“Fred!”
You sputtered as you broke the surface, hair dripping into your eyes just in time to see him double over laughing.
And then, before you could retaliate, he cannonballed in after you.
Every moment of calm dissolved into splashing, laughter, and half-hearted attempts to dunk one another beneath the surface. Fred succeeded exactly once before you retaliated by grabbing his ankle and dragging him under with you, emerging seconds later breathless and triumphant.
By the time the chaos finally eased, you’d drifted farther from shore, your limbs heavy with exhaustion and your sides aching from laughing too hard.
For a moment, there was nothing but gentle movement. Water lapping softly against your shoulders. Sunlight scattering across the surface in broken gold. Fred floating nearby, hair plastered to his forehead, grinning like he didn’t have a single thought in his head except this.
You turned slightly, your gaze catching on something in the water near your hands.
It glimmered faintly beneath the surface.
“Oh—wait—” You said, reaching out instinctively, “I think that’s a shell or something. It's pretty."
Before you could even finish the sentence, Fred was already diving.
He disappeared beneath the surface without hesitation.
"Chivalry is dead, they say."
The words died in your throat when he resurfaced a moment later, shaking water from his hair.
In his hand, he held the shell out proudly, grinning at you, “Ta-da.”
You smiled automatically, already reaching for it, already preparing some teasing comment until your eyes slipped past his hand.
Past the shell.
To his wrist.
Angelina.
The name sat against his skin like it belonged there.
Like it had always belonged there.
Your fingers stopped mid-air.
Fred was still talking, still smiling, still looking at you with that easy warmth that had become so familiar you didn’t even think about it anymore. His voice blurred slightly at the edges, like it was coming from farther away than it actually was, and the lake around you suddenly felt quieter, heavier, as though it had decided to hold its breath with you.
You couldn’t look away from it.
Angelina.
It wasn't wasn't the first time you were seeing it. It definitely wasn't new.
And yet seeing it like this—so close, so real, so casually visible between moments of laughter—made something inside you tighten in a way you hadn’t been prepared for.
The universe’s choice.
Not you.
Never you.
A strange stillness settled in your chest, not sharp at first, just heavy, like the slow sinking of something you hadn’t realized you were holding. Your thoughts began to slip before you could catch them, drifting in directions you couldn’t stop.
Would they make a good couple?
Did she ever think about him when she looked at George?
Did she ever wonder what it would’ve been like if she’d chosen differently, if she’d taken a different path, if she’d looked at the wrong twin and hesitated just a second longer?
And worse—did Fred ever think about it too?
The shell in his hand suddenly felt irrelevant, something from a different moment entirely, like it didn’t belong in this one anymore. Like it had been part of a version of the world where you weren’t thinking about this. Where you weren’t standing in the middle of a lake watching the evidence of a future you didn’t belong in wrapped around his wrist.
You weren’t even fully aware of the shift until it had already happened.
One moment you were here, in sunlight and laughter and water that still clung warm to your skin.
The next, everything felt distant.
Muted.
As though you had stepped just slightly outside of yourself.
“…(Y/N)?”
You blinked, forcing yourself back into your body, into the moment, into the lake and the shell and him.
Fred was closer now, his expression no longer playful. The smile had faded without him even seeming to notice, replaced by something quieter, more attentive.
“You alright?”
For a second, you forgot how to answer.
Then you managed something that almost resembled normal.
“Yeah.”
A pause.
His eyes didn’t leave your face.
“You sure?”
Too quickly—too automatically—you nodded.
“Just cold.”
Even as you said it, you knew it wasn’t convincing.
Fred didn’t push. He rarely did when it mattered.
Instead, he moved closer through the water until his arm brushed yours, steady and grounding, and then—like it was the most natural thing in the world—he slipped it around your waist to keep you from drifting too far with the current.
“Yeah? Well,” He said softly, almost lightly again, as though trying to pull you back without forcing it, “We can fix that.”
And for a moment, you let him.
Just a moment.
A final moment.
In all honesty, you hadn’t meant to avoid him.
Really, you hadn’t.
It wasn’t like you actively chose to turn around every time you saw Fred in the corridors, or pretend you hadn’t received his notes because you’d gone to bed early, or slip out of a room the second you heard his boisterous laughter drawing closer—the same laughter that used to send a wave of warmth flooding through you.
But every time you saw him—his warm brown eyes, shadowed by long lashes—you felt that sinking pit open up in your stomach, swallowing everything else whole. It ruined your day before it had even properly begun.
And even though all you wanted was to be near him, you couldn’t help but turn away every time his eyes searched for you.
You really should have considered the fact that Fred wasn’t going to take it lying down.
And that he knew all about the secret passageways scattered around Hogwarts.
So you really shouldn’t have been surprised when he appeared in the corridor that had been empty not even a second ago—grabbing your wrist and stopping you in your tracks.
“Fred.”
“This push-and-pull bullshit isn’t going to work with me, (Y/N),” He said immediately, “If you want to break up with me, you better look me in the eye and do it.”
Ironic.
Because you couldn’t.
Your gaze stayed anchored to his wrist—specifically, to the inked name along his pulse, peeking out from beneath his sleeve.
And just like that, the pit in your stomach returned.
“This isn’t going to work, Fred.”
His brows twitched, his grip tightening just a fraction—like he was afraid you’d slip away again if he loosened it.
“Why?”
You let out a breath, shaking your head like the answer should be obvious.
“Because you’re not meant to be with me,” You said, “You’re already… destined for someone else.”
A flicker of confusion crossed his face.
“My brother’s soulmate?” He said, almost incredulous, “I would never do that to him. And she’s already made her choice.”
“And if she didn’t?” You pressed, your voice tightening, “If she changes her mind tomorrow? If she decides you’re the one she’s meant to be with… would you change yours?”
The question hung between you.
Fred didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, his gaze sharpened.
“Well then what about you?” He shot back, “If Riddle suddenly realizes how badly he messed up—comes crawling back, begging you to take him—would you go?”
The edge in his voice hit harder than you expected.
Suddenly, you were back in your dorm room again, staring at lipstick marks you hadn’t chosen, feeling that same hollow, awful ache in your chest.
Except this time—
he wasn’t your soulmate.
You had no claim to Fred.
If he turned around tomorrow and chose Angelina, you couldn’t fault him for it.
After all… she was his soulmate.
And if he wasn’t by your side—
If Mattheo came back, asking for your forgiveness—
Would you really be able to go back to him like nothing had happened? Could you let him touch you with the same hands that had touched someone else, pretend you didn’t know exactly where they had been? Could you stand there in his arms and still feel that sense of certainty you used to dream soulmates would bring—the feeling that this was your place in the world, that you were chosen, needed, loved completely?
“No,” You said, your voice barely above a whisper as the realization settled in, “I wouldn’t.”
Your voice steadied as you continued.
“I don’t want someone who would hurt me on purpose,” You said quietly, “I don’t want someone who makes me feel like I’m something they can come back to when it suits them. Like the only reason I’m with them is because someone out there decided it.”
Your eyes lifted to meet his.
“I want you.” You admitted, your voice tightening as you realized just how true it was.
These past few weeks with Fred had been the happiest you’d been in a long time. When you were with him, it felt like you’d finally found your place in the universe.
And that terrified you.
Because he wasn’t yours.
Not really.
And if those lipstick marks had broken your heart, then watching Fred walk away from you and go back to Angelina the second she called would destroy you.
“But I want you to want me too,” You finished, “Not just because I’m there. Not just to fill some empty space.”
Silence settled between you.
Fred’s grip loosened—not letting go, just sliding from your wrist to your hand, holding it instead.
“I’ll admit it,” He said after a moment, “That’s how it started.”
Your chest tightened.
“Just… something to make it hurt less,” He continued, quieter now, “Something to not feel so bloody lonely all the time.”
He looked at you then—really looked at you.
“But it’s not that anymore, (Y/N).”
And when you met his eyes, all you saw was sincerity. It hit you in a way you couldn’t quite explain—like the two of you weren’t just standing in a corridor anymore, but somewhere else entirely. Somewhere smaller. Quieter.
Just the two of you in the entire universe.
“I’m falling for you,” He said, like it scared him a little to admit it, he'd been burned before and he was scared he was going to be again, “And I want to be with you. Soulmate or not.”
You wanted to believe him.
You really did.
But the tattoo of her name lingered in your mind—a ghost between the two of you you didn’t know how to exorcise.
“But what about—”
“Fuck Angelina, alright!”
Your eyes widened and he dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated, desperate, “There isn’t a single part of me that wants her right now,” He said, “I thought I did. I thought I was supposed to. But I don’t.”
His voice dropped.
“Not like I do when I’m with you.”
You stared at him, that pit in your stomach beginning to dissipate, just slightly.
“(Y/N), please.” He said, taking your hand in both of his and pulling you closer, guiding your palm to rest against his chest.
His heartbeat was fast.
Almost as fast as yours.
“If you don’t feel the same way about me, that’s okay,” He said softly, “But don’t push me away because you think I’d rather be with anyone other than you. Because there is no one else, and there never will be.”
Something in you shifted, quiet but undeniable, and before you could second-guess it you stepped closer, your hand coming up to rest against his shoulder as you rose onto your toes, leaning in with the simple intention of pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.
But at the last second, he turned his head.
Your breath caught, your lips just a hair away from meeting his, so close you could feel the warmth of him, could see your own reflection in his blown out pupils. Your gaze dropped, almost involuntarily, to his mouth for just a moment and before you knew what was happening, you had closed the distance.
You had always thought your first kiss would be with your soulmate. You had saved it, carefully, stubbornly, building it up in your mind during sleepless nights—imagining electricity in little jolts rushing through your body, feeling inexplicable heat where he would've grabbed the dips of your waist, imagining certainty, imagining that unmistakable feeling that would tell you, without question, this is it.
You thought you would feel boundless joy rush through you, a state of euphoria that made you feel tethered and floating at the same time as you kissed the person you were meant to be with for the very first time.
As your arms slid around Fred’s neck and pulled him closer, as he kissed you back, his arms looping around your waist as he began to lose himself into you, blurring the lines between where you ended and he began.
You realized—
It was everything you had ever dreamed it would be.
The Gryffindor common room was rarely this quiet.
It almost felt like you had managed to catch your foot in the rug and slip into some kind of alternate dimension. Normally, it was chaos in its purest form—laughter spilling over armchairs, someone shouting about Quidditch from across the room, first-years getting shushed for the tenth time in five minutes. But tonight, the fire crackled softly instead of roaring, and even that felt like it was trying not to disturb the peace.
You were curled up in Fred’s lap like it was the most natural place in the world, one of his arms loosely around your waist while the other lazily traced patterns against your knee. You, meanwhile, were fully invested in a crossword puzzle like your life depended on it.
“Six across,” You murmured, brow furrowed, “Ten letters. ‘An ingredient in Pepper-Up potion—’ oh, this is easy.”
Fred hummed behind you, amused, “You say that about every single clue.”
“Because I am right every single time.”
“You absolutely are not.”
You glanced up at him over your shoulder, squinting, “Are you challenging my intellectual superiority?”
He shrugged, though that infuriating smirk was still on his face, “Not at all. Oh look—twelve down. Another word for humility. Quick, how many letters in 'not (Y/N)'?”
You clicked your tongue, rolling your eyes, and moved on to the next clue, solving it just as quickly as the last one. You leaned back against him with a satisfied little grin—and Fred tightened his arm around you just enough to make you tilt into him again.
“Show-off.” He murmured.
You solved another clue, and without thinking, pressed a quick kiss to his jaw.
Fred paused.
Then, like it was nothing at all, he kissed the top of your head in return.
It became a rhythm after that—clue, answer, kiss; clue, answer, kiss—soft and absentminded, warm in a way that made the rest of the world feel very far away.
Until it didn’t.
“You two are adorable.” Came a voice behind you.
You both turned slightly.
Lavender Brown stood a few steps away, arms folded, her expression somewhere between pity and smug satisfaction. Her gaze flicked pointedly between you and Fred, lingering just a second too long on the way you were sitting together.
“It’s just…” She continued lightly, “such a shame, isn’t it?”
You blinked, “What is?”
“That you’re not actually soulmates.” Her lips curled, “It’s such a shame you’ll never know what it feels like to be in your soulmate’s arms.”
Silence settled for half a beat.
Fred’s hand stopped moving on your waist.
You slowly closed the crossword book.
Then you looked up at her properly.
“Well, I actually take a lot of pride in that,” You said, voice sweet as honey, “At least I’m not like some people who the big man in the sky clearly knew wouldn’t be able to land a partner with that face and personality… so he had to shackle some poor bloke to them just to make it work.”
Fred made a sound that suspiciously resembled a cough hiding a laugh.
Lavender’s face went red instantly, “That’s— I didn’t—”
“Mm.” You tilted your head, “Anyway, good talk.”
She opened her mouth again, clearly searching for something to salvage her dignity, but nothing came. After a second of flustered silence, she spun on her heel and walked away far faster than she’d arrived.
The moment she was gone, Fred let out a low whistle.
“Good job, sweetheart.”
“Well,” You said with a small shrug, “I am the funny one in this relationship.”
Fred hummed quietly—the sound vibrating through his chest where your back was pressed against him.
“Oh yeah?” He murmured.
There was something in his voice now—lower, slower, warmer.
“S'that so?”
Something about it—the depth of his tone, the way his words seemed to slur like they were weighing on his tongue, the way he looked at you like he was genuinely drunk on you—made your stomach drop in a way you’d never felt before.
The crossword book slipped from your lap and fell to the floor.
And then you were turning fully in his arms, grabbing the front of his jumper, and kissing him properly.
Fred made a sound of surprise that quickly melted into something far more pleased. His palm slid to your back, pulling you in, and you felt yourself go slightly hollow with it—like every thought had been knocked clean out of you. Your hands moved up to frame his jaw as he kissed you back with growing desire.
And for a moment, the rest of the world didn’t exist at all.
Ron Weasley chose that exact moment to walk into the common room like he had impeccable comedic timing and absolutely no sense of mercy.
The door swung open with a creak, letting in a burst of cold corridor air—and Ron, flanked by a couple of his friends, froze mid-step.
Ron physically recoiled.
“For God’s sake,” He groaned, dragging a hand down his face, “Can you guys stop this disgusting display of affection?"
Fred didn’t even look embarrassed. If anything, he looked mildly offended that Ron had interrupted his very important work of being glued to your lips.
You, still slightly breathless—and also slightly offended—were actually a little relieved he’d walked in. Because if you’d been allowed to carry on, you were fairly certain you’d be expelled for public indecency.
Ron gestured vaguely at the scene like it physically pained him, like he was about to wretch up his guts at the thought of one of his best friends with his brother, “It makes other people who haven’t found their soulmates feel bad.”
Your eyes flicked to Fred.
And before you could stop it, you both shared the same secret smile.
Ron hadn’t even realized what he’d implied.
Still, something warm and oddly sweet curled in your stomach anyway.
Fred noticed it too. Of course he did.
“Right,” He said lazily, looking back at Ron, “We’ll make ourselves scarce then. Wouldn’t want to traumatise poor, lonely Ronald.”
“Oi—”
But Fred was already standing, pulling you up with him in one smooth motion like it was second nature.
You barely had time to steady yourself before his hand found yours.
And just like that, he was leading you toward the staircase.
You glanced over your shoulder at Ron one last time, sending him a mischievous smile and a quick wink.
He responded with a face of pure disgust.
It made you laugh—but the sound faded as you climbed higher into the tower, Fred still holding your hand like he had no intention of letting go.
epilogue: (lowkey the og plan was to kill off freddie but i changed my mind lol)
Eventually, Mattheo Riddle became very good at pretending.
It was a skill he perfected over the years in the same quiet, miserable way people learned to live with old injuries—carefully, stubbornly, until the pain became less of a sharp wound and more of a permanent ache woven into everyday life.
At first, it had been difficult. Mattheo had always been a man of candor. When he wanted something, he took it. When he felt desire, he showed it, and more often than not the world bent willingly into his hands. When he felt anger, disgust, hatred—he made sure everyone around him felt it too.
But heartbreak?
Guilt?
Regret?
Those emotions sat strangely on him, like clothes tailored for someone else entirely.
For a long time, he found reminders of you everywhere. Every couple passing him in the street felt like a mockery of something he had ruined with his own hands.
But time had a cruel way of dulling even the sharpest pain.
Eventually, Hogwarts became memories instead of places. The castle faded into nothing more than fragments in the back of his mind. He stopped dreaming about you eventually. Or perhaps he simply stopped remembering the dreams by morning.
He learned how to fill his days well enough.
Work helped.
Noise helped.
Women helped sometimes too, though never for very long. He became frighteningly good at moving from one distraction to the next without ever lingering long enough for silence to settle around him properly.
Because silence was dangerous.
Silence was where you lived.
People stopped mentioning your name around him after a while.
That helped.
Or at least, that was what he liked to believe.
Years passed that way.
Quietly. Pathetically.
And eventually, he became good enough at pretending that even he almost believed himself.
Until one morning, long after he had stopped allowing himself to think about soulmates at all, Mattheo woke to faint silver lines stretching across the skin of his stomach.
For a long moment, he simply stared at them in the mirror.
Then, silently, he swallowed the pain.
And pretended he never noticed them.
To be added to a taglist, please send me an ask! (I might respond to you in comments but I can’t guarantee that I won’t accidentally miss it)
BRILLIANT 😩🤌🔥 soulmate au always hit different and WHOO 😮💨 amazing ugh I LOVVE FREDDIE BOY he romanced the heck out of me 😭🥰 and then that epilogue 🤌😭
For those wondering about the fox. Grace has a subtle motif with this animal throughout the movie, but especially this shot where they pack this toy fox with his belongings on the Hail Mary. The pose of it looked a little haunting to me, thus prompting this illustration.
__________
(Small/large prints are also available on my etsy ❤️)
UNPOPULAR OPINION: A lot of "mental health issues" disappear when bills are paid, rent is secure, and the fridge is full. Peace is expensive. And pretending money doesn't affect mental health is privilege.
A/N: Fred Weasley has always always ALWAYS been my fav and I love reading fics like this but I decided to add extra gooey lore and molly angst bc bae went thru a lot
Warning(s): Fred being protective, Arthur basically being scared of his wife, mentions of death and loss. Reader is a pureblood from a rich family, distant relative to the blacks and distant cousin of draco (all purebloods are related somehow)
Word Count: 3.3K
Credit to @diviniyae for the dividers!! <3
“Baby, c’mon.”
Fred had been pleading with you for weeks now to spend your summer vacations at the burrow. Ever since the two of you started dating in your fourth year, you’d grown impossibly close to all his siblings, even Percy, for Godric’s sake. That’s how perfect you were for him.
He was known for being reckless, impulsive, and uncontrollable. He still was, but his storm had mellowed ever since he’d been with you. Pranks made to entertain instead of embarrass, jokes without singling out. He was still the same flashy, charismatic showman; now he was more mature, more reasonable. Loud as ever, no doubt of it, but he’d finally been balanced.
You were like wind to his fire; you might amp it down or fuel it, but you were always there. Your snarky remarks and witty comebacks offered him the perfect challenge; he’d hit the jackpot. You two could joke and laugh without offence or insecurity, without late nights wondering if a joke had a hidden meaning behind it because you read each other effortlessly. He never thought he’d fall for a Slytherin, especially not one with a family like yours.
You were part of the sacred twenty-eight and additionally were a very distant relative of Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, and Andromeda Tonks. They were your second or third aunts. Purebloods always married within their circle; people had complex relative histories. It even technically made you Draco’s distant cousin. The thought alone should’ve driven him away, but he wasn’t like that. Even if you were Bellatrix’s own daughter, he’d go up to you, because that’s how he is; what he does. He was fearless in a way that made one question whether it was rooted in stupidity, naivety, or maybe possible genius.
“Freddie,” you breathed, eyes soft with guilt. “I’m not sure I should, you know, your parents aren’t very fond of me,” you said softly.
It hurt you immensely that his parents had a distaste for you despite your best efforts. You saw it in the way Fred never showed you any letters his mother sent him unless he was sure you weren’t mentioned once in them. His mother wasn’t exactly subtle.
You couldn’t blame them for it, though a part of you was still bitter. Your family name was loud, your parents were sharp-tongued and prejudiced against anything that wasn’t a rich pureblood elitist. People heard your name and already drew conclusions that lingered; impressions of a cold-hearted, calculating, ruthless heir without empathy or tolerance.
Because of these assumptions, no one bothered to disprove them, opting to avoid you instead. Everyone but Fred. People called it stupidity, a death wish. But all those whispers and anticipation of a hex hitting his chest were eliminated after you threw your head back in a cackle, not even ten minutes after he came up to you.
The image was broken as soon as your laughter was heard; saccharine and normal like any other girl in the castle. And just like that, people came up to you more, returned smiles in the hallways, and didn’t stiffen when you walked past. Hogwarts turned comforting, more like home than your own. Fred stuck to you through it all, and you slowly won over each and every one of his siblings over the past seven years. You won over Charlie before he graduated when you were in your third year, and Percy warmed up to you when he caught you tutoring the twins in your second year. Ron was the toughest to break, but you finally got him when he was in his second year and you in your fourth, right after you and Fred began to date. He had passed the courtyard on his way between classes and saw you and Fred sitting out there, together. You were going on a tangent, hands on your hips as you scolded him for something he didn’t hear, but what really did it was how Fred reacted.
Fred Weasley, his big brother, was affected by nothing, brushing off punishments and detentions like dust on a coat, was pouting, head hanging as he stared at the floor, hands behind his back in compliance as you chided him. Ron decided something that day; if Fred let someone do that to him, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Ginny was by far the easiest to connect with. The poor girl screamed and nearly cried when she saw you, yelping about finally having another sister. You didn’t dare correct her. You even charmed Bill when you met him at the 1994 Quidditch World Cup Finals between Bulgaria and Finland.
You hadn’t realised Mr and Mrs Weasley themselves would be the toughest nuts to crack; they were stereotypical. It’s unsurprising given their age, but their persistence was staggering. Firmly written opinions sent to all their children about you, and long, long lectures Fred had to sit through about deceit and how people are images of their parents. It didn’t matter how much Fred defended you, how much his siblings vouched for your character; Molly was clear, and Arthur never opposed his wife.
“My love, light of my life, honeybear,” Fred continued, his hands travelling further up your arm as he pulled you closer to him. You let him with a lingering pout. “My parents can bugger off for all I care; they can’t do or say anything if I’m there. Trust me on that,” he continued, his eyes wide and pleading. He didn’t play with you; you were the most important thing in his life, and he made sure you were treated like such.
You went silent, thinking about it, but you were weak; you knew that. Fred Weasley, knowingly or not, was your weakness. You weren’t smiley, friendly, or easy; with him, you turned impossibly soft. It was almost a sickness; he calmed your rage within seconds, and you shut down his life-threatening pranks with a single look. “Okay,” you relented. He lit up completely with a gasp, pulling you into a bone-crushing hug, face in your hair.
“Ginny might cry when I tell her.” He said with a breathy laugh, making your heart swell. God, you loved that girl. “I’ll tell her myself.” You mumbled back, turning your head to kiss his neck before pulling back.
You were a bundle of nerves the entire train ride to the Burrow, everyone noticed. Ginny offered up her skincare, Ron passed you extra chicken from the lunch he packed from Hogwarts, even George didn’t try to slip you a nosebleed nougat; he had more sense than that.
Fred kept you close the entire time, tucked into his side. You saw the tension in the hard set of his jaw as he looked out the window. His hands flexed from where they were on your waist, squeezing the soft flesh every once in a while merely to assure himself of your presence.
When you reached, one thing became abundantly clear: Molly and Arthur had certainly not been told of your visit. You saw it in the way her beaming smile harshly fell from her face once she spotted you next to Fred. She grabbed him, pulling him away.
You felt nauseous, smiling politely at Arthur as he gave you a forced smile in turn, his hesitance to shake your hand only added to the twist in your stomach. Ron took your suitcase, and Ginny took your hand, squeezing it in support as she tugged you to the car.
You turned your head to see Fred now proper scowling at his mother before he simply turned and walked off in the middle of her rant, face changing when he saw you look over, giving you as soft a smile as he could manage.
It didn’t get better at the burrow. Molly never looked directly at you, spoke to you through her children. ‘Ginny, she’ll sleep in your room.’ ‘Is she going to eat, Fred?’ ‘Ron, will she need her very own sheets?’ You saw the way Arthur winced, but said nothing. He himself was incredibly awkward near you.
You didn’t like it, Fred absolutely didn’t. Glaring and hissing a sharp “why don’t you ask her herself?” that Molly always promptly ignored. It went on for two weeks; Molly stopped laughing when you entered a room, and Arthur found excuses to leave. Whenever you were with their kids, something always came up. You and Ginny giggling and eating ice cream in bed? Molly needed her help sewing. You and Percy discussing the NEWTS? Arthur needed him to proofread something.
Fred was the main victim. Suddenly, he was needed all around the house as soon as the two of you were able to be together. The dishes, setting the table, helping with lunch, and helping load the laundry. It was so targeted and so obvious.
It all shattered during dinner one night. Fred and George decided this was the perfect time to talk about the fact that they’d be dropping out to open their own joke shop. Everyone knew Molly wouldn’t support it; she’d faced poverty. The thought of her sons not completing their education to start a shop made her all kinds of angry.
So, on went the screaming. Arguing at the table as George and Fred quite literally fought for their business with their mother, while Molly kept screaming about homelessness and how they’d never succeed.
It reached a point where she looked at you for the first time since the railway station and growled a low “You.”
You stiffened; everyone did. “You did this, didn’t you? Think it’s amusing, girl, making these two believe they can make it? Without suppliers? Investors? Nothing? You’re ruining my son's life!” She hissed, screaming the last part. You flinched, eyes widening.
“M-Misses Weasley, I don’t– I just want him to be happy-” You choked, but she slammed her hand on the table with a scoff of outrage.
“You don’t understand anything. People like you, sheltered, protected–you’ve never had to work for anything a day in your life, never struggled. ” She continued, the rage in her voice something no one at the table had ever heard before. “Rich, pompous, overconfident people like you are exactly the folk we don’t want to get mixed with—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up!”
Everyone whipped their heads around to Fred, the usually cheeky and unserious boy, now straight scowling. “George and I are doing this with or without your approval, Mum. I truly don’t care about what you say in accordance with the business, nor about your hopes for our success, but you will watch it when you talk to her.” He hissed, pushing back his chair with a harsh screech before throwing his napkin on the table, grabbing your hand to pull you up as well.
Molly was mortified, and Arthur looked like he’d been spat on. “Frederick Gideon Weasley, you will sit–”
“Mum, please!” Ginny huffed, making your heart clench. The poor girl looked close to tears. She sniffled, turning to hug George’s arm. Molly’s scowl broke at the sight of her only daughter in such peril.
Fred dragged you up the stairs to his room. He’d gotten his own ever since Charlie moved into his own cottage somewhere in Scotland, closer to the dragons had been his only justification before taking off.
Your eyes were wide, heart pounding horrifically loud in your chest. You looked at the back of his head the entire walk to his room until he finally slammed the door.
“Fred!” You whisper-hissed, hands trembling with adrenaline. He dragged a hand down his face as he turned to you, the other wrapping around the small of your back. “This doesn’t help my whole image with your mother, she’s gonna think I’m manipulating you against her or something—”
“She’s not that manic.” He mumbled, ducking his head into your neck before taking a deep inhale. “Hopefully.”
He hugged you around your waist, tugging you into him as he leaned into you. You could feel he was doing this more to calm himself than offer any comfort, but you didn’t mind much, dragging a hand through his hair. You felt the breath leaving him.
You could hear the thud of footsteps climbing up to his room, and feel the way his shoulders tightened. He nudged you behind him as he turned to the door, half expecting his mother to come bursting in, but all he heard was three soft knocks.
“Fred?” Came a soft, older tone. His father, Arthur.
He didn’t hesitate opening it, letting the lesser of two evils in. Arthur looks guilty, almost hesitant, when he steps in, mouth open, before he shuts it. “Fred, my boy, your mother— both of us, we want the best for you. The shop, I-I’m not saying you shouldn’t follow your dreams, but you can’t expect her to be okay with it.”
“That’s not why I stormed out of there, Dad.” Fred huffed in turn, narrowing his eyes as he grabbed your waist, pulling you to stand next to him. “You know that.”
His father clasped his hands together, glancing towards you for a moment. It was clear he was choosing his words as carefully as he could. “Freddie, she– she’s not what we had in mind for you.” He said delicately, you could see Fred’s shoulders tighten.
“Her family, people like her, haven’t been good to people like us.” He continued, you took Fred’s hand as a reminder to keep himself regulated. It was odd, having to regulate his anger instead of him regulating yours. “Do her parents even know about you?”
That made you stiffen, hanging your head. You hadn’t told your parents, certain they’d forbid you from seeing him. You’d talked to Fred. He understood. Still, admitting he was a secret boyfriend was degrading.
“It doesn’t matter whether she’s told her parents. I trust her, that’s my choice. She’s brilliant, dad, you and mum would know if you gave her a singular chance.” Fred muttered, venom dripping from each syllable. Arthur felt the bitter truth in his words, nodding solemnly.
“No, you’re.. You’re right. I know.” He relented, looking at you apologetically. “I’m sorry, dear.” He all but breathed. You just offered a soft smile, nodding.
“It’s– We have lived through a lot, Fred.” Now it was Fred’s turn to stiffen. “Your mother lost Fabian and Gideon in the war. To people from families like.. Well, hers.”
Fred sighed, squeezing your hand. “I know about them. She’s told us. But, Dad, things are changing. Times are changing. She can’t be bitter forever. Your mother was Cedrella Black! Does that mean she hates that part of you?!”
Arthur stammered. That was enough. “Why is it different for y/n, huh? Haven’t you been cruel enough? I’d like you two grown adults to realise you’ve been bedevilling a girl who’s nearly three times younger than you!” Fred continued, finishing with a scoff. He knew he was loud—knew the whole damn house probably heard. He couldn’t find it in him to care; he almost hoped his mother heard.
Arthur just nodded, unable to gather the words to continue the conversation, exiting the room.
You shuddered, Fred pulled you in.
Safe to say, no one minded if you spent the night in Fred’s room that night.
Morning rolled around, the tension still present like a living, breathing presence. Fred didn’t leave you for a single second, and no one tried. Neither Arthur nor Molly pretended he was needed anywhere; they knew Fred wouldn’t entertain it.
To his credit, Arthur really did seem like he was trying. Wished you good morning, offered you tea when he was making any, even went as far as to ask for your future job plans. Fred was already grateful, smiling whenever he heard it. He eased up on his father, let himself relax around you when his father was near.
But Molly was a woman on a mission. She made sure it was known that Arthur was alone in his acceptance. She let you serve yourself during meals, dramatically moved away from you like you had Spattergoit. You chose to ignore it, a smaller, pettier part of you made you extra nice to her in turn.
All of the Weaslings (apart from Bill and Charlie) were around the coffee table, playing exploding snap. The air was filled with hysterical giggles and pure orange-haired competitiveness. Arthur was off at work, and Molly was serving snacks, very pointedly placing the plates as far from you as she could.
You shot her a smile dipped in honey. “Oh, thank you, Miss Weasley! You’re so good to me. I couldn’t be more grateful.” You cooed, making Fred stifle a snort. His mother looked appalled, muttering a quick ‘no matter’ before rushing back to the kitchen.
You’d come to accept it, almost took it as a sad fact of life. Ready to fight Molly Weasley for the rest of your life.
Then came that fated night.
You couldn’t sleep. George thought it was genius to watch some low-budget horror movie. You crept down the stairs of the burrow to the kitchen to take a glass of water and, potentially, a cookie Molly made.
You filled the glass before the light flicked on from behind you, startling you. Damn you, George.
“Oh.” Molly mumbled when she saw it was you, hesitantly walking into her kitchen to grab something from the fridge. It was rather early, four am. You didn’t think she’d be up so early.
There was a horribly awkward moment where neither spoke; you simply drank your water at the counter. Then, the silence was shattered.
“I had brothers, you know.” She mumbled; you immediately knew where this was going. You looked over at her; her expression was something you couldn’t pick apart.
You nodded, she continued.
“They joined the order. First Wizarding War. I’m sure you’ve met Harry. They met his parents there. Young, stupid and ready to fight.”
Her voice thickened, your heart sank.
“Twins. Like my Fred and George. Good people, amazing to me.” She kept going, unwrapping dough she got from the freezer. “Died when I was pregnant with Percy.” Her voice broke around the word died and you suddenly felt like a monster.
“Took five deatheaters to kill them. Antonin Volohov was the only one who was named in the report, the rest having taken their own lives once captured.” It was unsettling, the things this woman had gone through. It made your heart ache for her.
“Volohov worked closely with Bellatrix. I guess I just… can’t accept that a trace of what killed my brothers lives in you.”
You felt your throat tighten, tears stinging your eyes as the woman placed the small balls of frozen dough on a baking tray.
You cleared your throat, moving to wash your hands, drying them, then wordlessly assisting her.
“My mum once killed my pet mouse because attachment was a weakness to her.” You mumbled, and she shifted to make room for you. Not to get away, but to make space. You noticed.
“I cried to my father, but he offered no solace. He said nothing should be important enough to bring me to tears.” You rolled the dough into a ball, passing it to her. “Met Bellatrix once. I was.. Maybe seven. She threw her shoes at me when I touched her wand, grabbed me by the hair and presented me to my parents like a fox she killed.”
Molly hummed in acknowledgement, but there was something softer. A sympathy.
“I may not hate her as much as you do, I may never will, but I truly despise and loathe her very being. She’s hurt you much more than she hurt me, but her cruelty to more and more people gives me more and more reason to be as different from her as I can.”
The room settled into comfortable silence after that. She put the cookies in the oven, and you washed your hands.
As soon as you turned to leave, she took your hand. It was gentle, not like she was trying to restrain you. You turned, and she placed a kiss to your forehead before walking away. “Goodnight, dearie.”
You bit back the smile growing on your face, sheer joy filling your chest.
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