Chaos Theory (Harry Potter / Captain America crossover)

Chapter 2

1943, June 11th
Brooklyn, New York

Aren't you a little young to be a Captain already, Doll?

She'd collapsed on the bed in the room she'd been given and slipped straight into a fitful sleep after the events of that day. Hadn't seen the words until she was undressing to take a much needed bath the next morning. Spied them as she stripped out of the tight dragon hide suit she wore beneath her unspeakable robes.

And she'd frozen in her tracks too. So completely astounded by their appearance, Hermione had almost utterly forgotten her purpose for undressing in the first place. It had only been the whiff of crisp ozone and her own sweat that had jolted her back to her senses as she shifted to view the writing more clearly.

She'd clambered inelegantly into the steaming bath and settled in for a relaxing hour or two as the hot water worked its magic on her sore muscles while she washed way the ash and blood that had settled in thick claggy patches on her skin after the previous day's explosion. But she was soon distracted with once more staring at her shiny new soul words.

Hermione had spent her life since learning she was a witch, since learning that witches and wizards had soulmates, with the knowledge that her lack of soul words was just another thing that set her apart from the wizarding community at large. Made her even more of an outsider than her muggleborn status did.

Muggles didn't have soul words. She hadn't understood what the girls she shared a dorm with meant when they asked what hers were that first night at Hogwarts. Hadn't understood the look they gave her when they showed her theirs and she'd told them she didn't have tattoos. Hadn't understood until she asked Professor McGonagall why the other girls had words on their skin and did their parents know about the tattoos.

In hindsight, McGonagall's gentle explanation hadn't been very helpful for little Hermione Granger. The professor had assumed her young student simply ignorant of the meaning of the marks as many muggleborns were. The comprehension that Hermione's confusion existed not from cultural disparity but because she had no words of her own did not enter the professor's thoughts for many years to come.

It was rare, after all, for a witch or wizard to be born without a mark. To this day, Draco Malfoy remained the only other person she knew to be missing his words as she did. It was a terribly lonely thing, she realised as she grew older, not sharing the wonder her friends knew when they met their soulmates.

Hermione had witnessed the moment Ginny Weasley spoke Harry Potter's soul-words more than a year after he'd spoken hers. She'd known her crush on her redheaded friend would be short lived the moment he met little Gabrielle Delacour in their fourth year and seen the sudden spark of total devotion that flared between them. But for all the loneliness it brought, Hermione wasn't sure she was sorry for their absence. Because she'd also held friends in her arms when they lost their soulmates to the dangers of war. And she'd selfishly thought in those terrible moments how glad she was that she would never know their pain. And, after the smoke cleared and the dirt was washed away and their wounds began to heal, she'd found a lifelong friend in a former enemy and she thanked Merlin everyday for someone who understood.

To be missing your mark usually meant you didn't have a soulmate. Or, in very rare cases, that the two halves of a soulmate pair were so far apart in distance or time their never meeting was all but guaranteed. And in never meeting they would never say the words that would otherwise be reflected in their marks.

Hermione had very quickly half-convinced herself that the appearance of her very own words was surely a fluke. Because if it was real that meant her soulmate had probably been dead before her birth. And if he was alive here, she might one day have to choose between everything she knew and loved and the one thing she didn't have but had spent a decade desperately, secretly yearning for. And wasn't that a heartbreaking prospect.