Note: This one is for my darling Perry_Downing. She's been with me through so much, and I can't repay her enough for her kindness and caring. We discovered we both had a mutual love for the SSHG ship, and had for over a decade even before we met. We've bonded over this just as much as Star Wars, and I wanted to give a nod to her and that with this. Plus, she's had a pretty crap time these last ten days and I wanted to make her smile. :) Love you, dear.

I'm a sucker for the soulmate trope. And yes, I know there is a decided age difference between these two. Yes, I know the problems some folks have with this ship. No, you will not change my mind on me liking this ship.

This fic was inspired by another I saw while browsing AO3 (just the summary, I didn't read the fic) that was about bad words and phrases as soulmarks. I just can't find it now. If anyone knows which it is, please let me know so I can properly give credit. Otherwise, everything about this fic is mine. Well... except for the fact that the Potterverse and characters belong to the lovely J.K. Rowling, goddess of the bestest writing sandbox in the whole world.

Wizarding age of majority is seventeen, as established in canon.

I have never written a Potterverse fic before, and honestly this was damn daunting. It hasn't been brit-picked though it has been looked over by my lovely beta, Annaelle, at least!

Hope you enjoy. xoxo

On Hermione's eleventh birthday, she had been surprised to receive not only her Hogwarts letter, but also a set of words running up and down her spine. Her mother had noticed when she'd been helping brush her wild head of hair, and the two of them plus Hermione's father had studied the words for hours before the Hogwarts letter arrived, carried personally by the most astounding woman Hermione – and her parents – had ever met.

Her dour expression had lightened in the face of Hermione's enthusiasm and voracious intellect and, before five minutes had passed, Hermione had the woman smiling – just a small one, but Hermione had the feeling that the smile was rare, and thus worth all the more for it.

"I imagine you must have questions," McGonagall – she had introduced herself as such not a moment previous – said, and was immediately cut off by a loud guffaw from Mrs. Granger.

Hermione pouted at her mother and father, who had rolled his eyes, and then grinned, trying to still herself from bouncing up and down in her seat at the mere thought of all the things she had to learn now.

There were so many things.

But she latched onto the one thing that had yet to be explained: "What do the words mean?"

McGonagall arched a delicate brow at her, but replied evenly, "Magical beings have soulmates, and the words are the first words your soulmate will speak to you after your attain the age of majority."

Hermione scrunched up her nose. "But that's impossible!"

McGonagall smiled softly at the mulish look. "And yet hours ago you would have said the same thing of magic."

Hermione had nothing to say in response to that.

She certainly had lots to say on the subject as soon as she was allowed even the smallest bit of access to the Hogwarts library nearly eleven months later. It had been a long year between learning she had magic, and enrolling in the school that would teach it to her.

"None of this makes sense!" she whined to the boys for what they would surely say was at least the hundredth time.

The boys were sprawled across one of the couches in the back of the common room, Hermione on the floor at their feet, eyes darting back and forth between the myriad of books she had spread around her.

"What doesn't?" Ron asked around a mouthful of food even as Harry groaned and then elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

"You already asked her that last time!" Harry grumbled.

Hermione sniffed at him and then answered Ron, "Well you see, this whole soulmate thing – it makes no sense! How can a 'power that be' or 'god' or 'force in the universe' exist in the first place—" she powered over Ron opening his mouth to answer her question, "—but better yet, how do they know who is your soulmate? What if you don't like the person who's supposed to be your soulmate? What if they're on the other side of the world? Or does this all-knowing," she rolled her eyes, "power only choose from within the wizarding population of a certain area so that you're guaranteed to meet your soulmate? What if you don't meet them until you're a hundred and two, or they're a criminal, or they have terrible teeth or they are a bad man or they are—"

"Blimey, Hermione!" Ron cut in. "It just is! Smarter people than you have tried to figure it out and failed. We all just accept it."

Hermione sniffed at him as she gathered her books, turning her nose up as she left the common room in a huff.

In the wake of being healed from her petrification, Madam Pomfrey closed the curtains around her cot, and sat on the edge of her bed. She looked mildly uncomfortable, but her words were gentle as she asked, "Would you like to speak about your words?"

Hermione tilted her head at the matron even as she fidgeted, her hands itching to hold a book within them. "Words?" she queried.

"Your soulmark."

"Oh." Hermione stilled for a brief moment, then commenced her restless movements once again. "Well, I don't even know what they mean, actually. I've looked all over the library and couldn't find anything, and no one wants to speak about soulmarks so I couldn't ask anyone and – why are you looking at me like that?"

Hermione couldn't stand the look of pity on the woman's face. "What is it, Madam Pomfrey?" she asked, sharper than she intended to, her voice creeping higher.

"They're… words to a spell. They—"

Hermione jumped out of the bed as fast as she could, and raced to pull her robes on over her rumpled clothes. "Of course!" she exclaimed, mind already haring off in all directions, trying to figure out where she could look for her answers. "A spell!"

She didn't even stop to consider that the healer might be able to answer her questions until she'd arrived back home for the summer.

Her words. Her words were—

They were a spell. They were a terrible spell.

Unforgivable, they called it. Called them.

Hermione cried long into the night, her silence born from years of practice.

Professor Moody had just… he'd just… he'd just demonstrated in front of everyone what would happen to her when she met her soulmate for the first time after turning seventeen.

He'd shown them all, and yet if Hermione was a little paler than most, a little bit more quiet than normal… no one seemed to notice.

Her soulmate – man or woman, it made no difference – had to be a Death Eater. Or at least a sympathizer. There was no other explanation.

But she found herself oddly at peace with that knowledge. She felt calmer than she had since first finding out what her words were – what they meant.

She didn't need them. She didn't need anyone or anything except for her best friends, her books, Crookshanks, and her parents – and, of course, to graduate with Exceeds Expectations for every single one of her OWLs and NEWTs.

She was a modern, independent woman. She needed no one. She would meet her soulmate, and then move on. Just because they were matched did not mean that they were right for each other, she had determined. It only meant that they could have been – should have been – right for each other, before life got its hands all over them.

She would go about her life how she saw fit, and let nothing or no one stand in her way.

By the time sixth year had rolled around, Hermione was so used to the way things were that she stopped being as careful around the boys.

"Hermione?" The way Harry said her name sounded halting, breathless. It was as if he were uncertain of something.

"Yes, Harry?" she asked as she turned around, finishing tying her hair in a bun at the base of her neck.

"Your—" The thumb of his left hand smoothed itself over the words written on the skin of his right forearm, and Hermione understood in a split second exactly what had him so tied up in knots.

Hermione sighed, and let her hands drop to her sides. "Yes, Harry, it is what it looks like. And no—" she interjected before he could say another word, "—I don't want to talk about it."

Harry nodded, trying desperately to hide his expression, and letting silence fall over them for long minutes as they returned to their studying. Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, he said her name again.

At her humming response, he rested his hand on her arm. "Just, if you ever need to talk…"

She smiled softly at him, heart welling up at everything that simple phrase conveyed.

"And…" he continued, slightly more hesitatingly. "Ron will want to know."

That was a much more complicated topic. But yes, he would want to know that the words of her soulmate were words that he would never ever be able to speak to her.

"I know," she whispered, heart clenching painfully. "I know."

She was seventeen.

Seventeen and on the run with her two best friends after nearly being murdered at her friend's brother's wedding, of all places.

It had taken her nearly two months after the fact to realize that she had turned seventeen and the clock was officially counting down to when she would finally meet her soulmate. It'd been so long since she'd felt tied down to the man or woman who would be bringing her such hardship, that she had barely even thought to think about it for the last year. Even though she had turned seventeen, had reached the age of majority, there had been so many things going on that it had completely slipped her mind.

Hermione scowled to herself. She had spent enough time thinking about something she'd decided wouldn't matter to her.

It was time to keep moving.

Every dark wizard they encountered, every person who even looked at her, or Ron, or Harry, the wrong way, every person who even remotely looked like they would be able to speak her soulmark, she eyed apprehensively.

Moving on, indeed.

Hermione didn't even have a spare moment to think, let alone think on a matter of such unimportance as her soulmate. She was dodging curses left and right, casting her own, racking her brain in spare moments for ways that she could turn the tide even more definitively in their direction. The battle was raging around her, around them all, and she had lost sight of her best friends, the ones whom she'd sworn mattered above anything else in this world.

They'd had to split up, but it wrenched her very soul to have let them go.

Was that not what it should be like between soulmates? Why couldn't she have had one of them, or both as some witches and wizards had, or no words at all? Or at least something that hinted at a brighter future, one where she could have known from a young age that she would be happy and safe and surrounded by books and warmth and cool, fall breezes…

She dodged another curse by the skin of her teeth, and she chastised herself severely for letting her mind wander.

Now was not the time.

And yet, she was surrounded by dark wizards at every turn, and her mind – the primitive part of her mind she was unable to control – couldn't help but to turn its thoughts towards which dark wizard or witch, if any, had her words writ clear upon their skin in her pristine and elegant cursive.

She'd already been hit thrice and, after each one, had breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't felt the burn across her skin that heralded the letters changing color.

She'd been hit, and she'd survived.

She was strong.

She turned a corner, catching movement at the end of the long, otherwise empty corridor. They were Death Eater robes.

Hermione lifted her wand as she rounded the next corner, and—

"Crucio!"

She wasn't sure which stole her breath more – the burning of the letters changing, or the curse ripping through every muscle, bone, tendon, cell in her body – but they occurred simultaneously so it was of no matter, truly.

She clenched her eyes shut, biting into her lip to keep herself from screaming – being hit a fourth time was both better and worse than if it had been her first – and only succeeding partially in that she let a broken moan gurgle up from deep within her throat.

As quick as the pain started, it stopped. Footsteps were coming closer, speedy but not as if they were running.

I can't show fear, I can't show fear, she chanted to herself. I am Hermione Granger. Voldemort will be defeated because of me. I am strong. I am strong!

"Get it over with, quickly, if you're going to kill me. If not, leave me be – I don't want you," Hermione practically growled through her panting pain.

She heard a gasp. A halting of their footsteps. And then—

Then she could hear the sound of running footsteps and she was being gathered into strong, wiry arms, pulled against coarse wool robes, and a large, calloused hand was pushing the hair off of her face almost desperately and—

She gasped.

The deep black eyes of Severus Snape stared into her own, expressing more remorse and fear than she'd ever seen in them before. And there was… there was—

Self-pity. Anger.

She cast her thoughts back to her words, her mind quickly responding even though she'd been thrown entirely off kilter by who was at the other end of that spiky scrawl – she'd never once stopped to think of him, or any of the adults she knew, as people, let alone as a possible soulmate, she was so stupid, and the answer had been staring her right in the face on the blackboard of Potions class every year.

She was so stupid.

And awful.

The words she'd said to him… he had been living with those since he was eleven. She could only imagine how he had felt… how he had shaped his life because of those words. He must have hated himself; must have hated… must have hated her.

"I'm sorr—"

He pressed his thumb against her lips, his palm and fingers cradling her cheek. He still held her in his arms, kneeling on the hard, cold stone of the castle corridor. His eyes flashed, and his expression shut off. Hermione quieted beneath the force of his stare, now inscrutable. "Do not pity me," he ordered gruffly as he helped Hermione to her feet. "The Dark Lord is calling me," he announced as soon as they were both upright, and Hermione's eyes flashed to where she knew the Dark Mark lay beneath his sleeves before finding his eyes again. "We will speak of this later. Now go." She hesitated, her eyes widening. "Go!" he hissed, and she fled past him before she could even begin to fully comprehend what had happened.

It was only later, in the aftermath of the bloody and deadly battle, that Hermione was able to wrap her mind around it all.

Or, at least, she was not thinking too hard about what everything meant. She was exhausted, weary to her bones, and her mind was as near to blissfully blank as it would ever get.

Or so she hoped. It was rather disconcerting.

And yet there was still one more thing she had to do…

Hermione crept into the Shrieking Shack, and was immediately met with the sound of harsh, rasping, wet breaths.

He was still alive.

She knew he was – her word hadn't disappeared – and yet it was still a relief to hear proof of said fact.

Relief?

When had she become relieved that her soulmate was alive? When had she so irrevocably turned the tide on the course she had decided for herself? When had she decided that maybe – just maybe? she had seen the memories he'd given Harry – he wasn't as bad as what he seemed to be?

She fell to her knees by his side, dust pluming up around her as she immediately began to cast diagnostic and healing spells on the man, as fast as the words could leave her mouth.

Hermione hardly knew the man.

But… he wasn't evil. He had done the right thing, had saved countless more lives in an attempt to repay the debt he felt he owed a dead woman, and had been burdened by a war, two powerful masters, ghosts, politics, and the burden of a soulmark that proved to him just how vile he would become.

All that… all that and more.

He deserved a second – a third, even – chance. A chance to prove who he was beyond the confines of school and war and treachery.

It wouldn't be an easy journey, but Hermione had never taken the easy road.

And now they had the time and space to see if they would ever be more than friends.

They finally had space to just be. Where they could go back to life as normal, and she could get herself settled into a new career, a new education, a new… everything, untouched by the evils of Tom Riddle. And so could he. She was young; she had time to befriend him first before… well. Friends first. Maybe he wouldn't even want anything more. That would be okay. However, she couldn't deny that she wanted to pick his mind apart and learn from the brilliant man. Hermione knew he was a match and more for her intellect, and she was looking forward to that, at the very least!

Her fingertips traced the outline of her cursive through holes ripped in the torso of his robes; whatever she could see, she traced. The words burned red now, contrasting starkly with the pale white of his skin. He had lost a lot of blood.

First thing's first: get him healed. Save him.

After that? They would just have to wait and see.