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The name on his wrist remained a minor but persistent inconvenience.
No matter what magical or muggle methods he tried, it wouldn't budge.
Not to mention, when he actually did wake up properly on the morning of his birthday and went down to serve breakfast as usual, Aunt Petunia caught a glimpse of the writing and freaked out.
She had grabbed him harshly by his left hand, her wild eyes glinting with a greater level of disgust than usual. Harry was shocked.
She was usually quite mild in the mornings when it was just the two of them in the kitchen, Uncle Vernon and Dudley still snoring away upstairs.
"When did you get that?" she hissed, her mouth curled into a particularly ugly sneer.
Harry's breath stuttered, and he quickly explained, "Today! In the night! It just appeared I didn't write it! I tried to wash it off, but it wouldn't budge!"
She let go of his arm as if he were a particularly smelly sock and crossed her arms over her chest, peering at him down her nose.
"Get a wristband from the drawers next to the sofa and hide it.
Don't you dare let anyone else see that, you understand me, boy?" She dictated and then turned on her heel and stomped upstairs, likely to wake the others.
Harry gritted his teeth in frustration. Stupid Malfoy's stupid prank was getting him in trouble for no good reason.
He secured the wristband tightly and made sure the name wouldn't be visible; it was not like Harry wanted people to see Malfoy's name on him either.
Aunt Petunia was already cross with him, and it wasn't even nine in the morning yet. Not to mention, in a few hours, Aunt Marge would come barging in, treating him like the dirt beneath her shoe.
If Aunt Petunia reacted so aggressively, he shuddered to think how the Dursley siblings would react to Malfoy's name on his skin.
No, better to keep it hidden until he could get Hermione to remove it.
x.
It wasn't until Harry had settled into his bed at the Leaky Cauldron after defeating the monster book that his mind wandered over to the name inked on his wrist.
He had kept the wristband on during the entire duration of Aunt Marge's stay, right up until she had floated away screaming in fear. He suppressed a chuckle at the memory, better able to appreciate it now that the anger and adrenaline had faded.
Briefly, his mind flashed to the scraggly, large black dog he had seen moments before the Knight Bus arrived.
His intuition told him, somehow, that the dog was important. Although he reasoned with himself, how could a random stray from Surrey be of any importance to his life in the rolling hills of Scotland?
He ran his fingers over his still-covered wrist and let out a low gasp as the same cooling sensation spread from it.
He wondered what spell Malfoy had used to ink his name onto Harry like so.
Harry wasn't even aware there was a spell that could specifically activate on his birthday, although that wasn't surprising.
Harry didn't know a lot about magic, and Malfoy must have used a dark spell he found in his weird, evil mansion.
The last time Harry had seen Malfoy was on Platform 9¾, as he was saying his goodbyes to the Weasleys; he had caught his gleaming blond head rushing over to his mother.
Even from a distance, the similarity was uncanny. Malfoy behaved like his father but looked much more like his mother.
Harry didn't know when he had the chance to throw an undetected curse at him, but he resolved to do something about that stupid magical tattoo.
After the Minister had finished giving him an awkward scolding, not for blowing up his aunt but rather for running away from home
Harry had taken the rare opportunity to live freely and had enjoyed his stay at Diagon Alley, far too much.
Harry had probably eaten every flavour of ice cream imaginable and spent way too much time drooling over the newly released Firebolt.
He had crawled around every inch of Diagon Alley and was intimately familiar with it now, something that brought him immense joy.
Standing from the bed, he wandered over to Hedwig to give her a couple of scritches on the head before he headed downstairs. Ron and Hermione should have arrived by now.
He stepped outside and was almost knocked over by a plump, scraggly rat being ferociously chased by a large orange cat, the two being rowdy and loud.
Harry recognized the rat immediately, Scabbers was here, which meant so was Ron.
Huffing with laughter, Harry made his way downstairs to the main floor of the inn.
Even at the stairs, he could make out the distinct voices of his two best friends sniping at each other angrily.
He settled for a moment and watched both of them argue back and forth.
Scabbers clutched protectively in Ron's hands while Hermione struggled to hold the bulk of Crookshanks, her newly acquired pet.
As the two argued the merits of the predatory relationship between a cat and a rat, Harry felt his chest fill with unbridled fondness for them.
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, finally noticing him.
"Harry!" Ron turned, his disgruntled expression smoothing out into a warm smile.
Harry leapt down the final few stairs and gratefully accepted their warm embrace, almost being suffocated by Hermione's hair. He grinned at the two of them, something in his soul feeling settled at last, at finally being reunited with them.
"Mum's been wanting to meet you, Harry," Ron began, tugging him toward where the other Weasleys were, "we only just arrived from Egypt and she wanted to make sure you haven't been starving or something."
Harry reached out to stop him, "I'll go say hi, Ron, but first I need to talk to you and Hermione about something," he explained when Ron quirked a curious brow at him.
"Oh, Harry, did you buy a new wristband? I haven't seen you wear something like that before," Hermione pointed out, and Harry was once again awed at how truly brilliant she was in all aspects.
"Yes, that is what I wanted to talk about," Harry noticed the two of them share an excited look and couldn't help his confusion. What's so exciting about a stupid prank of Malfoy's?
"Let's go up to my room then?"
x.
The three of them settled on Harry's bed, Ron lying back against the pillows, Scabbers stuffed in his pocket to keep him safe, Harry sat next to him, and Hermione perched on the other end of the bed.
Harry finally unfastened his wristband. Ron and Hermione stared at him curiously.
"You see, I don't know how he did it, but I woke up on my birthday and well," he offered his bare wrist for their inspections, Draco Malfoy's name still inked on it, "No matter what I do, I can't remove the git's name."
Hermione gave a sharp gasp, her eyes blown wide, genuine shock written all over her face. Ron had sprung up from his leisurely lie and was staring at his wrist as if it were Voldemort himself, his face reddening to match his hair, his mouth opened and closed, but no words escaped him.
Suddenly, he sprang forward and grabbed Harry by the wrists.
"Hey!" Harry protested as his best friend frantically and aggressively wiped at his wrist, muttering expletives under his breath, "Ron, enough! I tried it won't rub away!"
"Ron, stop!" Hermione bellowed, and it finally broke Ron from his frantic trance, and he collapsed back against the pillows, looking as if he had gotten robbed of all his worldly possessions, his skin pale and expression ghastly.
"Oh, I can't believe this," Hermione exclaimed, her voice oddly wobbly as she reached out to inspect his wrist but stopped just shy of her fingers making contact with his wrist.
Harry was starting to get puzzled by their odd behaviour.
Yes, it was awkward to have Malfoy's name inked on him, but it wasn't harmful and surely didn't warrant such extreme reactions.
Harry ignored how he had tried for nearly an hour to remove the name himself; no need to validate their odd behaviour.
"What? Why are you both reacting like this? Hermione, I was hoping you would know the spell to remove this because I don't," his words only seemed to upset Hermione further, and she looked at him with tears in he eyes.
"What? What's wrong? Did the git poison me or something?" Harry asked, alarm rising in him to see Hermione genuinely distressed.
"You can't," Ron wheezed from behind him.
Harry turned to look at him. Ron had his arms thrown over his face, but his knuckles were white with strain from where they clutched his sleeves.
He must have sensed Harry's confusion since he continued, ignoring Hermione's hitching breaths.
"Harry, you can't remove that. It's not a prank. It's your soulmark. Malfoy is your soulmate."
Harry's brain screeched to a stop.
Malfoy was his WHAT?
He spluttered in protest, opening his mouth to rage at Ron, "Don't be ridiculous, Ron, soulmates aren't real, and even if they were, why would mine be Draco Malfoy ?"
"Oh, Harry," Hermione interrupted her eyes still shiny, her fingers twisting in her lap, "I thought you knew!"
"Knew what!?" he spat, his indignation and confusion robbing him of any manners.
"All witches and wizards have a soulmate, Harry," she began and her spine threatened, her voice gaining a familiar tone, indicating she was about to dump some crucial knowledge onto him, "on the onset of puberty, from the ages of thirteen to seventeen, on the younger one's birthday, a soulmate pairing will have each other's names inked onto their wrists.
It has been a part of our physiology since the times of Merlin, at least, there's a legend actually," but Harry could not listen to this any longer.
He angrily cut her off, "You're kidding me right? How come nobody told me that this was even a thing?
Muggles don't have soulmates but wizards apparently do and I was never told?"
He wasn't going to think about what this meant for him and Malfoy. He couldn't.
His heart was thudding away, distraught at something so important being kept from him.
Something that was part of his physiology. How come nobody had sat him down and talked to him about it?
"Harry, people have told you that your parents were soulmates.
I thought you read about it, it was in the introductory booklet we received First Year!" Hermione exclaimed, tone pleading in the face of his anger.
"What booklet?" he snarled, even Ron looked confused.
Hermione tilted her head at them, her hair falling into her face, tucking it back she continued, "The information booklet that came with your Hogwarts letter?
It had all the basic information about the wizarding world, soulmates were included there.
I can understand Ron not receiving one but Harry, you were raised by the Dursleys, you surely did!"
Harry clenched his jaw, his mind flashing to the circumstances under which he received his letter.
Despite the hundreds of letters sent to No.4 Privet Drive, he doesn't remember seeing a singular 'information booklet.'
Surely, Dumbledore didn't expect the Dursleys to sit him down and explain the magic of wizard physiology.
Hagrid had come to take him, but the half-giant had only helped him get his school supplies from Diagon.
He had met Malfoy for the first time that day, the first wizard his age he ever met.
He remembered seeing the slight blond figure getting measured at Madam Malkins.
He remembered the first words spoken between them: 'Hullo, Hogwarts too?', and he also remembered how Malfoy's pink lips had curled in distaste at the sight of Hagrid.
He remembered hating him then too, with a stab through his heart.
"I never got anything like that, Hermione," he gritted out, "Nobody told me."
Hermione looked even more stricken somehow.
As if knowledge being kept hostage from him was somehow the biggest injustice that had happened to him in his frankly miserable life.
"You said my parents were soulmates," he asked both of them softly.
Ron sat up and nodded, clapping his shoulder in support, "Yeah, mate, they were. From what I know, your parents got their soulmarks in their last year at Hogwarts, and then when they got married, they also had a traditional soul-bonding ceremony."
Harry's heart twisted and his eyes prickled. he still didn't fully comprehend what it meant to be soulmates in the wizarding world, but it made sense to him.
James and Lily being soulmates just made sense in the same way it made sense that the sky was blue and the Sun rose from the East.
Of course, if there was a measure of love as pure as being soulmates, they would meet it. Harry wished he had the opportunity to see them be each other's soulmates.
The thought that they didn't get a lifetime with each other was devastating enough; the thought of them being soulmates somehow added to the tragedy.
"What does it mean then? That I have Malfoy's name written on me?" he asked quietly, his indignation had burned out and his head hung low.
Ron and Hermione shared a glance over his head, finally, Hermione turned to him, reaching for his hands.
"Harry, according to legend, it is magic itself that grants you your soulmate," Hermione began but then her voice seemed to choke up, her tears rolling down her cheeks.
"A soulmate is supposed to be your other half. Every wizarding child is raised on stories about their soulmate, y'know? A soulmate is supposed to complete you and compliment you in every way." Ron explained, his voice reverent and with a quiet awe to it that Harry had never heard before.
"And yours…" Ron trailed off hesitantly, side-eying him with caution.
Harry huffed, "And the other half of my soul is supposed to be Malfoy ?" He didn't try to hide his incredulity, he still couldn't accept it.
The notion of a soulmate was grand; it seemed so perfect, to have someone made to love him.
To be his other half. Someone who would be entirely his, in a way nobody else in his life was.
Harry yearned for that, he craved it. But Harry couldn't accept that someone for him was supposed to be Draco Malfoy of all people.
Surely, there must be some sort of mistake.
The three of them looked at each other in quiet distress, nobody fully willing to acknowledge the truth.
"Guess we will find out won't we?" Ron began after a beat of silence, his blue eyes sharp, like they are when he is strategizing ten steps ahead during a chess match, thinking of all possible outcomes and how to prepare for them.
"We go back to Hogwarts tomorrow, Malfoy will surely tell you to piss off then."
"There must be some explanation for why, Harry," Hermione shook her head, her curls swinging with the movement, stubborn refusal on her face. "Magic doesn't make mistakes like this."
"Well, it did for me," Harry muttered sullenly.
They were startled as they heard Mrs. Weasley's voice calling for them, Harry quickly put the wristband back on, in case someone came in.
Somehow the knowledge of his link with Malfoy made him feel small and ashamed, he wanted to curl up into a ball and stay like that until he could properly process what this meant.
As they made their way downstairs, Harry gave each of them a harsh look, silently saying Not a word.
He rather die than admit to the Weasleys that the son of their mortal enemy, Draco Malfoy, was his apparent soulmate.
x.