Phoenix Black and Neville Longbottom get blasted into Westros and end up meeting a familiar face in an unfamiliar place. Soulmark trope

Soulmarks of various types, Robb/OC pairing, Neville/?, soulmarks are names and when the marks fade grey, the person is dead (or soulless in the cases of them having been kissed by a dementor). Not everyone has a mark.

Fortune Favors the Bold

Prologue

Phoenix huffed against a wall, blood and dirt on her face coating her body. Her little bag (curtesy of Hermione's research in extension and featherweight charms) shrunk on a chain around her neck that only she could remove, hanging below her too baggy shirt. Her wand clutched tightly in her right hand as she and Neville tried to catch their breath.

Neville looked more like a man than the bumbling boy that she learned was her bond-brother when her father had escaped Azkaban. Even exhausted, holding the Sword of Gryffindor coated in snake's blood he looked stronger than he ever had.

"We're going to die, aren't we?", he whispered quietly. There was no fear in his voice, only an acceptance of the inevitable.

Phoenix closed her right eye. The left (still healing, still not the same as it had once been) was covered by a patch of cloth and a sticking charm.

Phoenix wished desperately that she could answer as she had in their 5th year on the way to rescue her father. The confidence of youth not fully touched by war. Wished she could comfort her soul-brother again.

"We're too young to die" she had once told him, as sure of that statement as she was sure the sky was blue, and the grass was green.
Before he had faced his parent's torturer.
Before She saw the same woman force her father through the Veil.
Before his parent's torturer became her's.

"I don't want to", Phoenix said, "Not yet, I won't let her win"

"I won't let her take you" Neville swore, fierce as their house mascot "Not again"

"She's taken everything, Nev", She whispered running her free hand through her matted curls. Ignoring the name on her wrist, still visibly dark on her skin. Not for much longer she thought grimacing at the fact Bellatrix knew the name on her wrist. No use keeping it hidden any more she had thought as she rewrapped her permanently scarred arm, before being summoned to Hogwarts with Bill and Fleur.

The castle shook, dust and stone fell from the ceiling as something crashed on the floor above them.

"She hasn't taken me nor you" Neville whispered firmly. "She hasn't taken our lives, Phee."

Neville gripped her left shoulder tight as they faced each other. His face softened along with his grip as she flinched hard, instinctively, at the touch. "I won't let her"

"You can't promise that, brother", Phoenix whispered feeling as if the world was bearing down around her. Future bleak and as dark as her family name.

"She'll die before we do", Neville promised, " I'll level the whole castle if that's what it takes, Bellatrix won't survive this"

Phoenix starred at him, soot covering his face and wood splinters in his hair from the bridge he'd helped to level earlier. Dirt, dust and blood from other fights covered him as well. She allowed her lips to quirk up as she looked into his eyes.

"Fortune favors the Bold?" she whispered as the castle shuddered again, screams getting louder as the fight moved closer to the hidden corner they had found to rest in. The phrase a favorite of her mother's.

Live for me, my little Firebird, promise me, until you can live for yourself again. Please

Phoenix blinked hard to keep the tears at bay. Her mother's voice echoing in her head yet again.

Neville grinned down at her, kissing the top of her matted curls. "Fortune favors the Bold, sister", he echoed before they steeled themselves to move from their hiding spot.

She could hear her maniacal laughter, she knew that sound as well as she knew the sound of rain. Neville knew it just as well, too, if the way he tensed was anything to go by. They'd been lucky to have stayed hidden as long as they had she realized. Lucky to still be hidden.

The battle had been raging for hours, maybe days, she wasn't sure really. Anybody who hadn't been brought to the Great Hall, who had died after Harry's supposed death and revival, littered the halls of the crumbling castle they'd all once called home.

Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Ron, Fred, George, Percy Weasley, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Draco Malfoy (who had switched sides mid fight officially, had switched unofficially when he would sneak her food as she was held captive in his house), sweet Luna Lovegood, the light in her dream-hazed eyes permanently snuffed. So many others who Phoenix couldn't even recognize through the damage that had been done.

Phoenix flicked out a little enchanted compact mirror that she had moved to her pocket before the fight, the glass uncracked the silver casing untouched. Neville shuffled close behind her to see in the mirror as well to peer around the corner. No use sticking their neck around the corner for a killing curse to hit.

Neville towered over Phoenix's small starved body as their eyes narrowed on the raven black mane that might've once mirrored Phoenix's own curls in style. Bellatrix's back was to them focused on her fight with someone else.

Phoenix went to move right as there was a ferocious shout," NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH".

Phoenix and Neville watched as Bellatrix was quickly overpowered by the grieving and angry mother. Blasted to bits in a way Phoenix never thought the Weasley Matriarch capable of. Phoenix smirked as her questionable respect for the red headed woman grew.

Neville whispered " I told you so".

Phoenix turned so that they could circle to a different part of the fight, a different part of the castle. Her grey eye widened. She quickly latched on to Neville's jumper (to do what she didn't know) as myriad of colors blasted the both of them into stone and darkness.

She came to quickly. Flat on her back, wand in hand and pinned between her hand and Neville's jumper. The enchanted mirror still in her left hand. She groaned in pain as voices echoed around her, but the stone did not move as the castle walls had done as it crumbled down around them.

Opening her eyes, she knew she was dead. Staring down into her face was a matching pair of familiar grey eyes. Same color that stared back from her right eye. With pitch black curls to match.

"Dad", she murmured before the darkness fully took her.