enchantement - SOULBOUND I̲̅ || SS/HG ✔️

47. Souls

Waking up in the morning had been harder than she anticipated, her swollen and tired face standing depleted before the mirror in the girl's bathroom.

After she had managed to fall asleep, her mind full of noxious thoughts that disrupted her night, Hermione's dreams had been nothing other than unpleasant. For the first time in a while, she started to question the impact of lucid dreams and their veracity in the notion of premonition.

During her fifth year at Hogwarts, Divination class with Ms Trelawney had been nothing but ridiculous and outrageously dramatic. However, on one particular class, the lunatic with round-magnifying-glass-spectacles introduced the power of premonition, most particularly through dreams. For the first time in a while, Hermione decided to listen to the teacher's words, finding it fascinating how thoroughly invested she was in describing the power of one's mind and the impact it had on the past, the present and the future.

Suppressing more giggles than necessary, the brightest witch of her age had to admit that the class had been relatively interesting, with facts and proofs, which had never been Trelawney's forte in the past.

"Danger can be one of its main triggers. Once the soul realizes that his life is at stake, it can flash images of their vessel's future in order to keep them alive. You see, your soul and your vessel are two different being. While the vessel cannot work without the soul, the soul cannot survive without inhabiting a vessel." Hermione remembered Trelawney explaining as she raised her divination globe, shaking it lightly. "Like this globe here, your life is connected to your soul. One body can inhabit many souls throughout his life, yet not at the same time. The danger happens when the soul is stronger than the vessel, or the vessel isn't powerful enough to inhabit a different soul that the one he was born with. If that is the case, the vessel will enter a similar state of muggle coma and the soul will be living a temporary state of limbo - fully conscious."

The way the class had stayed silent throughout her speech had been shocking to both the Divination teacher and Hermione. Most of the time, the students, especially Slytherin, found a particular liking in mocking her voice or the absurdities she taught. Yet this time, she had managed to obtain their undivided attention.

"However, the soul has a mind of its own. If it realizes his vessel isn't fitting to shelter its strength, it will exit the body and find another one to share its powers. But life has a twisted way of playing with one's destiny. You see, if the vessel is weakened, yet contains power unlike ever seen before, the soul will be sucked into the vessel without a possibility of leaving it. There, the body is showing a sense of defence mechanism - as the muggle like to put it - in order to save themselves, or someone else."

Even now, with the years that had flown by, Hermione was still unable to understand what she meant.

Letting the warm water from the shower run down her worn out body, unable to grasp how long it had been since she had a real physical rest, Hermione flinched as she remembered the way Trelawney had looked at her during this class. The side glances and unusual apologetic bug out looks startled her.

Shaking her head in a bid to eject those vagabond thoughts away from her mind, Hermione stayed halted as the water dripped down on her body, letting it wash all her sins and darkness away.

▽ϟ▽

"You look like shit 'Mione, what the hell did you do once we parted?" Asked Harry, grabbing the butter in the middle of the table and spreading it on his toasted bread, "here take this, you need food to get your mood back up."

Taking it reluctantly, not finding a liking in eating these days, Hermione thanked him and bit down on it - trying her hardest not to cringe at the unpleasant feeling of food inside her mouth.