The Cactus That Appeared On My Hand

"Well, okay. Hi. I'm Harry, turning seventeen this July, maybe you would like to meet up with me?"

In Muggle's world there is no such a thing as "soulmates". Well, okay, they do exist, you can meet yours by an accident and even fall in love with them but honestly, you don't have any control about that happening. You might marry a person you fell in love with and never really find out, why you still feel such a big hole in your heart.

Before I discovered I'm a wizard I had no idea that such connections were confirmed in real world. I had thought they were created by those girls that keep their noses in books, dreaming about "perfect love" whole day long. But it was the same about magic, wasn't it?

After arriving into Hogwart I got to know bunch of new things that seemed surreal just a few days earlier. There were wands, people flying on brooms, you could even take a moving photo, can you imagine what a great shock it was for me to find out about that?! Everything was so new and strange for me at first. I got scared easily, couldn't find classrooms on my own and didn't understand why I should watch out all the time, especially when people from Slytherin were around. I mean everyone can turn out to be a bullying bastard, they don't necessary need a green tie to make you upset, can't they? My mistake for not taking warnings about Salazar's people seriously.

I had heard that most of them are cunning, sometimes cruel, but I had not expected it would be so visible since the very first day. How that much of prejudice can be justified? Saying there were no soft-hearted Slytherins would be an exaggeration, but you know how the saying goes; "Exceptions make a rule".

I myself was surprisingly immune to most of their insulting words. I didn't care whether they had problems with me as long as they didn't bother my friends (which they did frequently, so basically we were not on the best terms back then). I especially hated when they were showing off with their parents money, making fun of those not-so-well off. As if wealth was the only thing that mattered. They seemed to have a particular problem with people that were not born into wizards' families, calling them Mudblood and harassing them on every occasion and it was just too much for me to stand.

Falling out with most of them in my first month at Hogwart wasn't a hard task really. We started glaring at one another on corridors without making unnecessary fuss about that. Yet, there was that one guy. The one that couldn't just pass by me or my friends and not say any poisonous comment. He was rather intelligent, getting grades usually over the average, but reserved and unable to swallow his pride in order to make new friends.

Since the very first day I could sense the strange tension between us. My friends would say it was because his behaviour really pissed me off and I didn't want to cross my path with him, but it wasn't like that at all. Quite the opposite even.

I had a little secret that I have never told anyone, concerning that blond peer of mine, which was my unstoppable desire to know him better. I used to spent hours trying to understand him at least a bit better. I wanted to know why he was acting as a jerk despite being so gentle and kind with my white owl I saw him petting the another day. I needed answers, but I was helpless. He wouldn't let me close enough to have a private conversation - even when we had to clean the bathroom together as a punishment for being outside our rooms after ten PM he brought Goyle with him.

My friends' feelings were also to be considered whenever I wanted to make a move. I simply couldn't approach Draco while they were present, talking to the bullying prince would be an action of complete rascal.

We were stuck in impasse for such a long time, almost six years when suddenly, on the first of July something happened. I was happy to wake up on the first day of holidays, after having an amazing party at Weasleys' place, ready to enjoy some time off from school, when I noticed a strange shape on my palm. At first glance it resembled cactus with arborescent stem, quite bizarrely patterned or... well, let me stick with my PG friendly version of cactus. I didn't remember drawing anything like that myself so I asked Ron, whether he has anything to do with it or not.