Belonging

Bad News Ears -Madelyn Watson-

-Madelyn Watson-
Monday

Madelyn woke up early with her ears aching. She had to lay on her back as even the soft pillow was too much for her tender ears. She sighed into the darkness as her friends still happily slumbered away. She knew there was no point in getting up too early, Madam Pomfrey wouldn't be in the hospital wing yet. She tried to lay still and ignore the pain. Daydream a little. Then her stomach growled.

It was so loud she clapped her hand over her belly like she could shush it. Another growl and she was up, not wanting to wake her friends with her belly's protestations. She grabbed her uniform off the top of her trunk and went to shower, using cool water to soothe the burning ears.

She went down to the Great Hall and grabbed some food, heading up to the hospital wing with four triangles of toast in her hands. Munching and getting crumbs everywhere as she went was less embarrassing than her loud belly.

At last the healer came around the corner. Madelyn could swear the nurse smiled at seeing her there. Madelyn smiled back but winced as the muscles flexed her ears too. Even smiling was unpleasant. "Good morning, Miss Watson! I trust your ears are still bothering you, then?"

"Yes. It's awful. I got a list from my friends of all the candies they had on the train. But they say I'm mad, I'm the only one with sore ears."

"Indeed, well. Come in and let's have a look." Poppy guided her in with a hand on her back, the nurse had a rather large smile on this morning. Madelyn's belly was still rumbling even as she finished her third piece of toast. She self consciously brushed the crumbs off the bust of her jumper as the nurse's eyes lingered on them.

She was steered into a chair and the nurse began looking at her ears with a magnifying glass. When her hair wasn't covering them Madelyn could swear she saw them glowing pink from the corner of her eye. Her fears doubled as instead of a wand waving or potion the healer dragged a chair up and sat down across from her.

"Is it serious?" Madelyn asked with toast in her mouth, mentally scolding herself for her bad manners.

"A little. But not in the way you think." Madam Pomfrey began. "You are muggle born, you said?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Well... are you familiar with soulmates as they exsist in the wizarding world?"

"We have soulmates in the muggle world too."

"No. You have a romantic concept... a fairy story.... In the magic realm it is more of a rare but very real mating bond."

"I've heard people say that you and Professor McGonagall are more than just married. I thought when they said soul mates they just meant... you were perfect for each other."

"We are more than just married." Poppy smiled. "Mated. Pair bonded. Souls that have been looped together."

"But why are you telling me this?"

"Your ears and hunger are the first symptoms. I know them well. It takes me back to over twenty five years ago when I first set foot in this castle as a healer. They started right away."

"...But... I don't even have a boyfriend..."

"Mates are seldom the ones we think they will be anyway. Even if you did have a someone it might not be..." Poppy trailed off, thinking of the heartbreaking story she had been reminded of last night "If you did have a boyfriend you might be finding yourself awkwardly mated to another... it has been known to happen."

"So my ears hurt because my.. soulmate... is here?" Madelyn asked and then crunched through her toast, her appetite didn't have the common decency to be shocked into silence.