Cursed Be this Soul (that Ties Us Together)

Prologue

 Cursed Be this Soul (that Ties Us Together)

*

Five:

Not everyone had soulmate marks.

It was a cultural phenomenon that occurred in every one in five, the not having a mark, and theoretically, there was nothing wrong with that.

At least, that's what her mum told her, often and constantly, especially when Hermione would come home from nursery crying that all the other children had symbols and names all over their bodies - on shoulders, wrists, hips, chests - and that she was going to grow old and die without ever meeting that one.

Until the day Hermione woke up and found her soul mark.

It was a weekend, the start of summer term, and her father had promised to take her to the British Museum because they had a new exhibit about medieval agriculture - or horticulture - or maybe it was something, but "culture" was definitely implied, and Hermione, who absorbed all kinds of knowledge, needed to go.

That morning, she brushed her teeth (one minute, each side, inside and outside, like her dentist mother taught her), and as she looked at her reflection on the step stool, from behind incredibly bushy hair and bleary eyes, she saw something strange on the inside of her right wrist.

She spat out the mint toothpaste, blinking and rubbing at her eye with her left hand to rub the sleep from it, and stared at the bruise-like mark.

But it's not a bruise, she thought, fascination growing within as she carefully set her toothbrush down - still frothy with paste - to run her left fingers over the howling wolf within a shield, a stack of books with a baton beneath the wolf. It was her soul mark, the merging of her with her other half, the symbols that represented them.

Giddy, she returned to brushing her teeth, but it was hard from behind a wide, beaming smile.

And later, when she whipped through the medieval section at the museum, she examined each and every shield she could find, to see if any matched the same design on her wrist; to see if there were any famous wolves.

She wouldn't stop searching for several years to come.

*

Nine:

Ned was nine the first time he ever saw - and officially met - his soulmate.

Brandon, at eleven, had just left after his Name Day to foster with House Ryswell, and his two younger siblings, Lyanna and Benjen, were barely six and five. They were hardly of an age to play with him!

Sulking, Ned hid in the Broken Tower, at its base, kicking at the dirt with his feet. He was hiding there before returning to the Eyrie, where he was fostering. He had only come back to see Brandon for his Name Day, but the meeting had been short, now that he was gone, too.

A soft sound of surprise had his head dart up.

"Who're you?" he asked, eyeing the girl with very bushy brown hair in strange boy's clothes.

She eyed him just as strangely. "Who're you?" she retorted, bossily. She placed her hands on her hips and stuck out her lower chin. "Where am I? How did I get here?"

Beyond her strange clothes, she also sounded strange - not Northern at all, and her two front teeth were very large, almost giving her a slight lisp. She was so demanding though! Like Lyanna when she wanted to get her way and expected it, but Ned had never seen her before.