Chapter Text
Marcus was off his face.
For Salazar's sake, he couldn't remember the last time that he was this drunk. Maybe that time that Falmouth had won the Quidditch League Cup? That time, the celebrations had started immediately at the capture of the Snitch and had kept on for nearly two days afterwards. One minute he'd been slumped in a booth at the pub and the next thing he knew he was in the parade for the fans.
No, that couldn't be it. It had to have been sometime in the Slytherin dorms, when they were all just experimenting with alcohol and they had no idea what their tolerance was. Marcus had always been a pretty strapping guy... he'd arrogantly thought that firewhiskey could barely touch him. He'd been horribly wrong.
But tonight...
Tonight, the cause of his drunken state was Adrian Pucey. He wasn't entirely sure how his old friend had done it, but he'd managed to bag a totally beautiful German witch and actually gotten her to agree to marry him. Naturally, Adrian had gotten his best friends — Marcus, Cassius, and Graham — to stand next to him in the ceremony, which was taking place in beautiful Majorca.
They'd already had the stag do — a raucous affair in Copenhagen — but tonight was the rehearsal dinner. After they'd all practiced walking in to the party and standing and standing and standing, they went to an absolutely beautiful dinner planned by Adrian's mum, after which they had let Adrian give Ottolie a kiss and promise for tomorrow, before they pulled him away for one last night of partying before the wedding.
Graham had found a bar and they'd taken round after round of shots between pints of beer. Cassius was too sentimental to try for a one night stand and Adrian was too good of a wizard to even dream of straying from his witch. Marcus... well, he wasn't opposed to something a bit casual, but he always was worried that women were just after him for his fame and money. He wasn't blind. He knew that he wasn't the easiest on the eyes. So, he preferred to just watch Graham strike out again and again.
But, Graham could only handle so much rejection. The four of them decided to return to the villa that they were sharing for the night (the next night, Adrian would be with his wife, after all) to continue the party there. More drinks had come out and before Marcus knew it, he was supremely, supremely drunk.
He blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the jumble of words that Cassius was saying. He was chattering away, as usual, but none of the words seemed to be penetrating his brain. He felt like he was underwater, but he needed to keep up appearances. He couldn't let them know how fucked he was.
Salazar, he was going to need some kind of pepper-up potion in the morning if he had any hope of making it to the ceremony.
Cassius asked him something, his green eyes doing that pathetic puppy dog look that they did when he wanted something. Only, Marcus wasn't really sure what he was asking. He nodded anyway.
Fuck, maybe he shouldn't have, because Graham was giving him an incredulous look, before ribbing the pair of them and opening the last bottle of beer in the fridge (thank fuck).
Marcus stared at Cassius and really focused, trying to shake off the cotton wool feeling and really listen to what he was saying. Only, it sounded all like gibberish. Was Cassius as drunk as he was? Why was he taking out his wand? It sounded like he was speaking another language.
He turned his head and found Adrian there, looking especially distressed. Oh, Marcus thought. That's because he was hearing Adrian blather on in a foreign language, as he was practicing his wedding vows for the next day. Something about wanting to impress Ottolie's family and doing the Bonding in German and being romantic and all that stuff.
"Ready?" Cassius asked, drawing his attention back to the former Chaser.
"You really think that spell is going to work?" Graham asked, sliding into the open chair. "Who's to say that Marcus even has a soulmate?"
"Witch Weekly said—" Cassius hissed.
"—und verspreche, die Dir... no, fuck, it's not that. Dir die Treue zu halten—"
Marcus blinked again. "Let's just get this over with then?" he suggested. "I need to get to sleep or else I am going to pass out standing up."
"Yeah... zu halten... zu halten in guten und bow-sen? Is it bow-sen? Or more like booo-sen?" Adrian asked, looking to his friends for help.
"How the fuck would I know?" Graham demanded, a bit prickly. "It's your fault for waiting until the night before the wedding to practice."
"I wanted it to be a surprise, didn't I?" Adrian said, getting just as heated.
"Will you two shut the fuck up?" Cassius asked. "We are trying to find Marcus's soulmate."
Soulmate? Oh yeah, now it was sinking in. Cassius had found some silly spell in Witch Weekly (a guilty pleasure indulgence of his) to determine who your soulmate was, using a bit of Divinations. Well, Marcus had never even taken Divinations, so what did he know? It was all just a bit of fun, after all.
Without further argument from the peanut gallery, Cassius grabbed his wand and started the incantation and the wand movements. He barely got through it between the hiccups. When it was done, nothing happened.
Graham started to laugh heartily. "What does that mean, then?" he questioned. "Does it mean that Marcus doesn't have a soulmate or that you need to go back to Hogwarts?"
"—in Gesundheit — hey, I actually know that one! — in Geshundheit und Krankheit, ja—"
"What was even supposed to happen, you muppet?" Graham continued.
Marcus felt his face go a bit red while he wondered what had happened. Surely, it was never meant to work... like, it was in a Ladies' mag, after all. How ridiculous was it to think that they would have a legitimate soulmate spell in their pages? But, a small part of him worried that maybe he wasn't... well, special enough to have a soulmate. He just felt a bit sad.
"—ja Dich will ich lieben—"
"I don't know, I can barely even read the page," Cassius insisted, not liking being questioned.
"Don't even worry about it, Marcus, we will get you sorted out tomorrow," Graham said, clapping him on the back. "One of Ottie's friends or sisters or something."
Ugh, he didn't really want that either. He wasn't interested in finding some random witch for a pity fuck. He didn't need a soulmate. He had Quidditch and that's all that he wanted.
Before any more promises could be made, they registered an odd sizzling sound, like the hum of electricity rattling metal before a lightning strike. Then, there was a tremendous boom and a flash of smoke.
"—Tod uns scheidet!" Adrian finished, proudly, his brain barely able to catch up with the veritable rip in the space time continuum that had just occurred. He started coughing when he breathed in the smoke. "What the fuck?"
"What the fuck, Adrian? Did you mess up your German that bad?" Graham snarked.
But, when the smoke cleared, they realized that there was now another person in the room with them. Not just another person — a witch. Marcus blinked again, but yes, it really was a witch, standing a bit too close for his comfort, if he was honest.
He turned his head and was met with shapely legs, barely covered by a pair of dusky pink satin sleep shorts and an equally skimpy camisole. At least, he thought those things were called camisoles. She was thankfully a bit more covered by a thin open robe, the tie barely held together around her waist. The witch looked just as stunned as the rest of them, holding a toothbrush up to her mouth, as if she'd been mid-task before she'd been brought here against her will.
Her wild brown hair curled prettily around her shoulders.
Recognition settled in his belly and Marcus realized that he knew her. It had been a long time since he'd seen her in person, and Salazar, he'd never seen her dressed like this, but there was no mistaking her. Hermione Granger.
"Granger?" Graham asked, unsure of himself.
"Granger," Cassius said, looking like the cat who got the canary.
Then, said Granger opened her pretty lips and let out an ear piercing scream.
Marcus pressed his hands to the sides of his head, the pain absolutely throbbing from her over the top reaction. Salazar, he wanted it to stop and he wanted it to stop now.
Luckily, he was not the only one who had that idea. Adrian drew his wand and cast a silencing spell before anyone else could say anything. She realized that no one could hear her screaming any more and immediately she became irate, her lips moving but no sound coming out. She pressed her hands to her hips in an exceptionally bossy pose, trying to order them about, only to grow more frustrated that they weren't doing what she said.
"Granger, calm down," Adrian ordered flippantly, like a witch hadn't just popped into their villa completely unexpectedly, presumably in the middle of her bedtime routine. "I will lift the spell, but only if you promise to stop screaming. I know it's a shock — fuck, we are shocked, too — but the only way that we can get this sorted is if you talk at a normal volume."
Marcus watched with amusement as her nostrils flared and she took a deep, centering breath, before nodding in agreement. When Adrian didn't immediately lift the spell, she looked at him expectantly, only for Adrian to practically fall over himself to fix it.
"Why the hell did you summon me here?" Granger demanded, her voice still shrill even if she wasn't screaming.
"Summon you?" Pucey asked, feeling annoyed. "We didn't summon you."
Graham couldn't hold his laugh any longer. "Bloody hell, Cass!" he said, between huge gulps of air. "How the fuck did you mess up the spell so horribly?"
"Why do you think that I messed up?" Cassius countered. "I think the spell worked perfectly."
"What spell?" Granger questioned. "What the hell is going on here? Where the hell am I? Start explaining now."
"Adrian's wedding," Marcus said, hoping to be helpful, only to belatedly realize that that was not nearly enough explanation. "We are in Majorca for Adrian's wedding. Tomorrow. Just a bit of a lads' night before the big day tomorrow."
She turned her attention fully onto him and Marcus felt like his heart might have actually skipped a beat. He couldn't remember the last time that he would have seen Granger in person, but he was almost positive it was when she was still a third year at Hogwarts, more hair than person at that point. Of course, he'd seen her picture in the paper now and then, but it was something completely else when they were this close to one another. Salazar, her eyes were gorgeous, even when she was glaring at him.
"Oh Godric," she said, throwing up her hands in the air. "You are all drunk, aren't you?"
"Might have hit the bottle a little harder than we usually would," Adrian agreed, sounding regretful. He was the one who had to wake up and get married in the morning, after all.
"Alright, you said you did a spell. What sort of spell did you do?" she prompted, staring at Cassius as the likely culprit.
Cassius looked supremely guilty, but he caved and tried to start explaining. "Well, you see, I read about it in Witch Weekly, and we decided that we would try to have a bit of fun, you know, what with it being the night before a wedding and all that true love stuff?" he tried to explain. "I was having such a hard time though because Adrian kept blathering on with his German."
Granger raised an eyebrow. "German?"
"I was practicing my vows for tomorrow," he explained sheepishly. "My fiancee is German."
"That's actually quite sweet," she said, smiling softly for a moment. But then, she returned her focus to Cassius. "Okay... so you were doing a spell from Witch Weekly...?"
"Yes, we were trying to find out who Marcus's soulmate is," Cassius said, like it was the most serious thing in the world.
"Flint?" Granger asked, returning his attention to him again. She peered at him owlishly, like she was only just seeing him for the first time. "You really believe in that nonsense?"
Marcus realized that she was asking him. "Well, I thought it would be a laugh," he said. Only, if he'd known what Cassius was asking him to do, he never would have agreed to it in the first place.
"Okay, so you did the soulmate spell — which I hope you know is absolute bullshit — and then what?" Granger asked.
"Well, it must not have been total bullshit, because... well, you appeared, didn't you?" Cassius asked, looking far too proud of himself. "Which means that you must be Marcus's soulmate!"
Then, it really felt as if all the air left his body. Salazar, Marcus hadn't put that together at all. Hermione Granger was his soulmate? He supposed that it stood to reason — she did appear out of thin air, after all, presumably even traveling over an ocean.
Granger looked like she wasn't sure what to say, her cheeks going a pretty pink color the longer he studied her. "That's not possible," she said after a moment. "I mean... we have nothing in common! I haven't even spoken more than a handful of words to him. How could we be soulmates?"
"Exactly," Graham agreed, looking triumphantly at Cassius. "I told you this was a load of bullshit."
"How else do you explain your sudden appearance?" Cassius asked her, his green eyes glinting.
She floundered for a second. "Okay, I suppose that something you did summoned me here," she conceded after a moment. "But, that doesn't mean we are soulmates. All it means is that Witch Weekly had a dodgy spell in an article and... you were drunk when you did the incantation... and... I could really use a drink. Do you have any firewhiskey?"
"All out, I'm afraid," Graham said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Some stag night this is," Granger snarked, rolling her eyes.
"Nah, the stag night was weeks ago," he said cheerfully. "This is just the rehearsal dinner."
Marcus, without thinking, looked at the contents of his full glass and handed it to her without thinking. She didn't even balk before she grabbed it and took a big swig. Well, at least she apparently wasn't bothered about sharing a drink with him, he thought.
When she was finished, she set the glass down and ran a hand over her face. "Bloody Witch Weekly," she murmured miserably. "Alright, well, I suppose one of you will have to figure out an emergency portkey to get me back to England."
Adrian stood up. "We won't be able to do that, unfortunately. The government here is extremely averse to working outside the regular work week," he explained. "Listen, I will pay for you to have a suite here at the hotel tomorrow and Sunday and then one of these guys will pay for you to get an emergency portkey back first thing on Monday morning."
She took a deep breath again, trying to keep hold of her nerves. She tried to take a step away, stalking away to begin pacing, only to have some sort of magical tether keeping her in arm's reach of him. She narrowed her eyes at the invisible space between them. "Why can't I get more than a few feet from him?" she asked, trying again with no further luck.
Adrian and Cassius shared a look that Marcus couldn't even hope to parse after he'd been drinking so much.
"Um, this might have just gotten a bit more complicated," Cassius said, only now starting to look guilty. "I think..."
"Granger, listen. It's late," Adrian said, in that soothing voice of his. He was a solicitor, after all, and he was used to talking people into doing what he thought was best. "We've all been drinking quite a lot. It's my wedding tomorrow. I say, we all go to sleep and try to tackle this first thing in the morning."
"You want me to sleep here?" she asked, incredulously. "I don't even know any of you!"
"Well, it's not as if we could get you another room tonight if we wanted," Adrian said. "But even if the desk was open and could get you a room, it's not as if you can get very far from Marcus."
Granger looked mad enough to scream again, but luckily she kept her cool. "I suppose, if we are magically bound, then I will just have to," she said, not very happy at all.
"Look at him," Cassius said, talking about Marcus like he wasn't even there. "He can barely keep his eyes open and he will get snoring as soon as his head hits the pillow. He wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I know several Gryffindor quidditch players who would disagree with you, Warrington," she snarked. "But... I suppose, if I have no choice... come on, Flint."
He shot up to his feet, wobbling only a bit before leading her into the bedroom he occupied in the villa. "It's a King bed," he said apropos to nothing.
"That doesn't make me feel much better, if I'm honest," she answered. She pulled back the sheets, before getting in on the far side.
Marcus didn't waste any time and slid in on the other, his eyes already drooping shut. "G'night," he said, waving his wand to turn out the lights.
She sighed, rolling over and began shoving pillows down the center of the massive bed.
"What'r'ya doing?" he asked, blearily.
"Making a pillow barrier so you keep to your side of the bed!" she answered indignantly. "You had better keep your hands to yourself, Flint, or I will remind you why I was considered a Very High Security risk by Voldemort's Ministry."
"Salazar, witch, who even says I want to touch you," Marcus growled back at the poor woman who'd been dragged from her own flat to this villa because of his friend's stupidity. "Go to sleep, would you? We have a wedding in the morning."
He could hear her huff in annoyance, before she pointedly rolled away, her back to him. He couldn't stay awake much longer than that.