Chapter Text
You placed your fingers and braided your long hair. Getting ready for today. You stretched the black pantyhose and wore blue skirt with white shirt with your house's symbol on it. Short black boots and Hogwarts's coat. You moved your hair so your braid will rest on your shoulder. Lastly you removed the band aid that you had on you from the night and took out a new one from your drawer. Wrapping it around your left ring finger.
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You are in 5th year, Ravenclaw student. You still remembered the day when you entered 1st year after finding out you are a witch, born to muggle parents.
First year was hard for you. You were already weird in the muggle world, and called a loser and awkward among your peers. You always knew you were weird. Discovering you are a witch somehow didn't cure your social anxiety.
You were made fun behind your back for being shy when some students tried to befriend you and you didn't cooperate. And lost the opportunity in the first day to make friends. Students in Slytherin were harsher. Girls picked up on you and you never knew how to respond or what to say back, so they just kept going. You found yourself focusing more and more on your studies, trying to develop yourself and be better. Maybe this way, after school is over, you will find a decent workplace and start over.
Around 3rd year, when everyone started to slowly mature, you were left alone. And at least then you could had some peace.
At that year you met Amit. Who was equally awkward like you. He was the top of the class and knew multiple languages. You became friends and he was your only friend in Hogwarts. It seemed like things were getting better.
Until the summer before your 5th year.
You were in your parents' house, reading a book, when you received an owl from Amit. He told you that the soulmate mark has appeared over his shoulder blade. It was a childhood friend from India, Priya.
Soulmate mark appeared for everyone around between 4th year, and the last "bloomers" would receive it at their last 7th year. While most of the students got it at 5th year. The mark had the name of a destined loved ones, a person whom you would love during your whole life.
He had told you he was confused but happy at the same time. And he talked to his parents about it, to arrange a meeting. Indian culture is heavily based on arranged meetings with parents and arranged marriages. He sounded excited and promised to let you know what happened. You wrote back to him sending him your best wishes and hopes. You were close to him and always thought about him as a great friend, nothing more than that, so you were happy for him.
Days later you had received another letter from him. Happily informing you that he is engaged. The family meeting went out great. Priya shared the same soulmate mark on her ankle. Parents from both sides were happy. They would get married next year when they will turn 17. He will have one year left in Hogwarts and then he will get back to India to work there. He spoke to Priya, and she was happy about it as well. The feelings were mutual. Amit and Priya were both born to wizards and witches, so it all went out great. You wrote back, congratulating him and asked him to promise he would tell you all the small details.
A week before the summer vacation was over, you woke up in the middle of the night from pain. You felt like needles were poking the skin on your finger and hand. You got up and dragged yourself, as you barely managed to enter the bathroom and turn the light on. You stood in front of the mirror, trying to see what was happening. And then the pain stopped.
You spotted it on your left hand. Over your ring finger, just between the knuckles and the first joined. Right where a wedding ring needs to place. Was his name. A person who was a perfect match, your other half.
Ominis.
The person the universe thinks you supposed to love and cherish your entire life is a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself, a Gaunt.
You were mortified.
You disliked the students from Slytherin, mostly because of the first impression they gave you from the 1st year. All the girls making fun of you while you sat there unable to react. Their clear hatred for muggles, calling you filthy.
You started to sob.
It didn't make any sense.
Even if it was true, you are born to a muggle family, there was no way the pure-blooded family will let that happen.
You started to think you were punished, like you did something wrong and now the universe is out to get you and make a joke out of your life. More than it already is.
You heard of cases where people had their soulmate marks and never found their supposedly other half, or to find out their soulmate was already dead. On rare cases, their soulmate will have a different name marked on them, promised to someone else. Maybe this was your case.
You tried to stay composed. You were used to bad luck all your life, and this was just another one.
You took a band aid out of the drawer and wrapped it around your finger, hoping to never look at that again.
In the next day you went to the pharmacy and bought supplies of bandages and more band aid. Hoping to hide it this way from everyone else.
When you went back to Hogwarts and the year started no one asked you about it. No one cared about you to ask. But you kept ordering more supplies, and everyday in the morning you wrapped a band aid around your mark, to make sure no one will notice it by mistake. You knew very well that if one person will notice it, everyone will know.
You just could not hide it from Amit who noticed that on your first day, asking you to just heal the wound that you had you. You told him everything that happened. Amit promised to not tell anyone about it. He was supportive, thinking the same as you did. What else could it be? Gaunt must be insane like the rest of his family. Information like this should be kept in secret for your safety as well. Who knows what his family will do if they find out about it. If he had his mark already, no way it carried your name on it. You cried, moved by his understanding. He hugged you and told you it will be alright, and things will go your way eventually.
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You finished getting ready and walked to the common room. Amit was already there, waiting for you. You walked together to the Great Hall to eat your morning breakfast, he spoke to you about the stars alignment from yesterday and told you he had written a letter to Priya, drawing her the star constellation. They were perfect for each other. Priya herself was an avid astronomy lover.
When you finished eating you walked together to History of Magic class. Both of you sitting next to each other on the front row. Amit was sleepy because of last night, viewing the stars, so you took over and wrote everything Professor Binns said. An hour into the class suddenly the Professor said, "Everyone! Get up from your chairs". The sleepy students were confused by the sudden change of tone. "Since you are all very attentive to my class, maybe an assignment will keep you awake". You looked at Amit as he slowly opened his eyes after hearing the word assignment. He wasn't the only one, the rest of the students started to listen to what the professor had to say.
"Everyone, I want you to divide into halves, each half will stand on each side of the classroom". Confused looks were shared between the students and then everyone did as he said. You and Amit walked together the left side of the class, together with more students. Others went to stand on the other side.
The professor flew next to the group on the right side and waved his wand around. Two papers appeared in the air, in front of him. He moved the wand over the papers, he was writing something. Then the papers ripped into halves, then quarters and then again. The pieces shuffled in the air and then two pieces fell into the hands of each student.
"The papers have randomly chosen subject related to our class and the names of the students on the left side of the class. Each pair has until the end of the month to write me an essay about the subject, 30 papers long. No switching partners I will know. Maybe next time you students should be attentive in my lessons. The papers will be graded. Class dismissed".
Whispers and talking already accrued. Students were trying to appeal to the old professor. He just repeated "Class dismissed" again. Two minutes after, the students gave up. Each one of the students on the right side walked over to the left side, finding their partner for the assignment.
You got nervous. It meant you could not do the paper with Amit. You looked at him, his face showed he had the same thought. It was the middle of the year, and you were used to study with him for every subject. Doing a paper with someone else felt uncomfortable for you. A short brunette walked to Amit and showed him her parchment, carrying his name and the title of the subject. It was Sweeting.
You still stood next to him as Amit showed you the subject they would need to write about. He already scheduled with her when to work on it. But you didn't hear their conversation. You nervously waited to be approached by a random student. Your eyes shifted around, trying to search. Maybe the professor forgot to write your name? With your bad luck, it might happen.
"y/l/n?"
You turned around, following the voice. Gaunt was standing right behind you. Holding his wand in his right hand, and the paper with his left hand. You saw the small red light that came out from his wand which he used it to find you. You lifted your eyes, and they met his. Opal eyes looking into you. You got scared and lowered your eyes to the ground, hoping to maybe fall into it. You felt that Amit and Sweeting stopped talking. Amit shifted himself to look at you as you both realized how the universe found another way to make fun of you.
You saw that Gaunt reached his hand to give you the pieces of papers. You quickly took it and looked at the words. You last name was indeed on one of them, and the other one had the subject of your assignment.
"When would you be comfortable to work on the assignment together?" he asked you.
You didn't answer, still looked on the paper you were holding.
"Is everything alright y/l/n?".
You snapped out of it. "Yes. Today?". Your eyes shifting from side to side of the floors. Trying to even avoid looking at his shoes. You were scared.
"When do you finish your classes today?" he asked. Dragging this horrible conversation.
"At 3" you answered.
"Can we meet after your last class at the library?".
You nodded and then remembered he was blind and didn't see you nodding so you were forced to use words. "Yes". You returned the papers to his hand, brushing his fingers by mistake. Then you turned on your ankle and left the class. Leaving the group behind you.
You walked into the nearest bathroom, and then opened the water on the sink to wash your face. You looked into your reflection.
Why was this happening to you? From any other student it had to be Gaunt. Or Ominis as your mark stated. But you were not close to him to even address him this way. That was the first time you spoke to him, more like he was speaking to you, and you just stood there dumbstruck.
You recalled his cold skin as you touched his by mistake. He had no warmth in him. Sudden goosebumps surged your veins. You felt scared.
Scared someone will find out. That he will find out and then you will be tracked and murdered by his family for carrying his name over your body. It was indecent for someone who wasn't pure blood to have, according to Slytherins.
Self-mutilation was out of the question, you remembered reading about it with Amit. People who tried it just had the mark reappear after the skin is healed or appear someplace else on the skin.
You tried to breath deep, to calm your racing heart. Telling yourself that nothing will happen and there is no way someone will see it. You were practically invisible to all the students. The faster you will finish this task, the faster you can go back to your boring but normal life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A quarter after 3pm you entered the library, searching with your eyes the pale Slytherin. If he even bothered to wait for you there.
Unfortunately, you spotted him quite fast.
He was sitting near a table on the second floor, near the rails, where everyone could see you sitting together.
You got paranoid. You were a ghost to the other students, but Gaunt wasn't. You didn't know his social status, but he was known by all because of his last name. You could not let other students see you together. Even if you had an excuse for what are you doing together. Your life was on the line here and you need to remain invisible.
You held onto your bag closer to your chest and walked up the stairs until you reached his table. He was reading a book using his wand. It looked like he didn't notice you.
"Hi" you tried to act causal.
Gaunt lifted his face from the book and it seemed like he was looking at you. His pale eyes staring into your soul. You felt small twitch inside your stomach.
"Hello" he said, and the edges of his light-pink lips curved upward. Did he smile to you? It was unexpected.
"I… umm…" you tried to pull out the words from your insides. "I want to sit there" you pointed towards the other end of the library, where there are less students.
His eyebrows curved in, and he said, "I don't know where 'there' is, but I am willing to switch the spot".
Oh. Right... Blind. You felt stupid for a second.
He got up from the chair and grabbed the book, placing it inside his bag, and then held it with his left hand. His right hand holding his wand, the red dot appeared on it.
"After you" he said.
You started to walk, feeling him shadowing after you. Your heart was beating in your chest. You held your bag closer to your chest, thinking it will make you feel safer.
You picked a spot where the tables were empty, hidden behind tall bookcases. Luckily no one was at the other tables.
You sat down and placed your bag and Gaunt sat on the chair across from you. You lifted your eyes and saw his opal eyes staring at you again. Your heart was still beating. There was no way he could see you right now, but why did it feel like he did?
"I will grab the books" you said and got ready to stand up.
"No need, I already did it for us" Gaunt said and used his wand as the books left his own bag that he placed on the chair next to him. 6 or 7 books were stacked on the table.
"Just thought it would save us some time" he added. Actually, it was great. This way you will be able to finish this faster.
You took a long breath, tried to calm your heart down. 'Think like Amit. Just talk about how we should divide the work and what our steps should be'. It helped you to calm down. You opened your eyes, didn't even notice you closed them when you were taking breaths.
You looked at him and said "We should start reading, each one will take a book and read it. If there is an information worth inserting to our paper, we should write down the page number on a nearby parchment. After we are done with this part, we should inspect together what information should be included. And then, the last part, writing the assignment itself".
You were surprised by the number of words that left your mouth.
"I could not agree more" he said, his lips curving up again.
Did Gaunt agree with you? You blinked.
He grabbed one of the nearest books and opened it on the first page and pointed his wand on the pages. You looked at the way his fingers were wrapped around his wand as he started to move it over in horizontal line.
You shook your head and took a book from the pile and opened it to read it.
The first sessions should be without much interaction. You thought to yourself. Only the second part of your shared task would involve more talking because it would include discussions about what parts to use in the paper.
After you had begun your reading, you've lost yourself within the book. Consternation only on the words. Hearing from time to time as you moved a page or when Gaunt moved a page. The meeting went quiet without any other words. You felt more relaxed and for the time being, as you forgot about your fears from before.