Chapter Text
Soulmate marks appear differently in every person. In some, the name of their destined one appears engraved in their lettering in the place where their soulmate touches them for the first time; in others, flowers bloom across their skin when their soulmate is near, such flowers being their destined's favorite; but some times, the rarest of times, when the soulmate bond is so strong that the union of the parties is considered to be blessed by Magic itself, when the union of two souls is as deep as DNA, it will show itself in the form of a physical change: the color of one eye will change to that of their soulmate.
As the daughter of a pureblood witch, Severine Snape had grown listening to her mother's stories from the world she came from, a world she was so desperate to be a part of since she had her first bout of accidental magic. But her mother had had no qualms on playing down her stories, she grew up with the good, the bad, the gruesome, the beautiful... the violent. Severine learned from a young age that the world was not perfect, and that people who could hurt her would hurt her, but deep down, when her mother told her about the possibility of finding her soulmate in Hogwarts, just before she boarded the train, she wished that Magic would bless her with a soulmate that would love her and accept her unconditionally, she couldn't wait until she turned seventeen to find their name tattooed on her skin, or for their favourite flowers to bloom on her... She knew she wouldn't be so lucky as to have one of her eyes change colour, but that was okay, she just wanted her soulmate to be... to be all she was not.
Now, just fifteen minutes away from the day of her seventeenth birthday, just one week after that loathsome Sirius Black had tried to kill her, Severine Snape found herself sitting on a conjured bath tub inside the room of requirements, naked, only the clear steaming water covering her modesty. She was waiting... just fifteen minutes more until her soulmate's name would appear on her pruned skin, or flowers started to bloom somewhere in her body, but none of that happened when she heard the school's grand clock signal midnight.
She searched everywhere, going so far as to enlarging the mirror in the room to check her backside, until a prickling in her right eye distracted her. She took her wand and dried herself, charmed her pijamas on and went to the bed. In front of her, a floating mirror appeared, the room wanted her to see something.
As she peered into the offending artifact, she could see her right eye change color. Minutes later, she found herself staring into her reflection. The colour of her right eye had cleared to a gray-silver. She only knew three people that had this eye colour, and she could physically feel her heart skip a beat and grow heavy inside her chest.
***
Eileen Prince had never been the luckiest person alive. For all her family had one of the oldest, purest bloodlines, they had lost their wealth decades before she was born. Eileen had grown up in poverty, had had to endure difficulties and humiliations from her peers at school; the only thing that made all that hardship bearable was the knowledge that one day she would find her soulmate. Then, all would be alright.
But as her luck would have it, her seventeenth birthday came and went, and neither flowers nor a name, even less a different coloured eye, made their appearance on her body. It was until she turned 24, six years after she ran away from her world, three after she married Tobias and one after her daughter had been born that something resembling doodles appeared on the inside of her left wrist. Severine was too young to remember, but that day, Eileen broke down in tears of sorrow for the first time, the heaviness of loss and uselesness deeply rooted within her.
A baby. Her soulmate was a baby. As the years went by, the lettering on her wrist changed from doodles to sloppy handwriting. The first time Tobias noticed it was the first time he beat her. Severine had been six, watching her beloved mother being abused had sparked a bout of accidental magic that sent her father crashing against a wall.
Eileen had been forced then to come clean about her magic and the world she came from, about her soulmark and her daughter. Tobias had never looked so heartbroken and betrayed, and she accepted every punishment he decided to dish out on her. When Severine became the target of his ire she would turn a blind eye, only fixing her daughter with bruise cream and her wandless magic. She didn't consider he could escalate, but when he came drunk one night after Severine came back from her third year at Hogwarts and Tobias came home drunk... when she found him in Severine's room, her daughter paralyzed by fear under the heavy, looming figure of her own father, his trousers down and his hand down her... Eileen can't remember how it happened. One moment her wand was in her hand and the next a green light had lightened Severine's room. Tobias was no more.
She packed her things and her daughter's in her old school trunk that now belonged to Sev, took what little money she could save, grabbed her daughter and disappeared from Spinner's End.
***
Severine had always known that, just like her mother, she wasn't the luckiest person alive, but even with that knowledge, she had hoped that magic would be merciful with her and give her a soulmate she could love.
She has been living with a glamour on her eye since her seventeenth birthday, concealing that damned gray-silver colour from the world. When she returned home for the summer vacations, her mother had just given her one look and she had crumbled to the floor in heartache. Eileen hadn't asked, she didn't want to make Sev feel worse.
Severine spent the remainder of her sixth year trying to identify who her soulmate was from her three suspects. The Hogsmeade weekend after that fateful day she was to see Lucius Malfoy for something he hadn't wanted to disclose in his very short letter. When she met him, he pierced her with his silvery-blue gaze. Wrong color. Her blood ran hot and cold with relief and foreboding and she could barely keep her mind in the conversation. He gave her an invitation to his wedding with Narcissa Black, which was to take place during the summer.
Her next subject was Regulus Black. She had a hard time tracking the boy down. She had no idea why the boy that always tailed her like a duckling to his mother was avoiding her all of a sudden, but she finally got a hold of him before boarding the train back to London. His eyes were a little bit darker than her changed eye, like molten mercury. She had hidden herself in an empty compartment to cry her tragedy.
During that same train ride, she had caught Sirius Black's eyes accidentally, and his piercing gaze had sent shivers of fear down her spine.
Severine went back to her part time job and saved what she could to buy fabric, her mother had told her that she would make her dress for Lucius's wedding.
Eileen was no idiot, after she left Tobias she started to get in touch with her world again, but remained partially hidden from it. The shame of her status and fear for her daughter made her keep an ear out for that horrible group called Death Eaters and his leader. She had known him, after all. But she didn't want to keep Severine away from her world, she couldn't do that to her.
Severine got dressed in her pretty dress, it was not the most expensive fabric or the trendiest shape, but it was made by her mother and that alone made her feel like a million pounds.
When she arrived to Malfoy Manor, she went to greet Lucius and Narcissa, congratulated them and hid herself in the back seats. Eileen had made her understand that Lucius's political views wouldn't bring her anything good, she didn't want to attract more attention towards her, but she could feel someone staring at her. In an attempt to charm herself unnoticed, she caught Sirius Black's gaze again.
After he had tried to kill her, she had done everything in her power to avoid him and his gang, going so far as to learning how to charm herself invisible when she couldn't avoid them at all... Now he was looking at her and she felt the urge to bolt from the place.
***
Severine's seventh year at Hogwarts started with the surprise not surprise of exchange students from Dumstrang entering th Great Hall during Dumbledore's speech. Three girls and three boys from different years were to take the place of six Hogwarts students.
She really didn't pay attention to them, all were to be located in Slytherin. Even the foreigners excluded her, except for one, whose name she learnt was Bjorn Balavanov.
Bjorn was in her year and always seated himself next to her in all their classes, both were awkward with each other but Sev surmised it was better than being totally excluded. September and October were relatively quiet, until November the 3rd arrived.
Severine was, unsurprisingly, walking alone towards the astronomy tower, trying to balance the books she was carrying when she was suddenly pushed against a wall, making her drop everything, even her wand.
When she realised who was pinning her to the wall, she panicked.
"Do you recognise the colour of my right eye?" Came the dreaded question in the agitated, angry voice of Sirius Black. Severine's eyes went wide with fear, and her shaking made Black grab her more firmly from her well worn robes and lift her a bit from the floor, his friends doing nothing to stop him, and everyone else just gathered around to watch.
"N-no... I-I..." she stuttered, only to smack her mouth shut by Black's demented shout.
"Don't lie to me! Who else has this eye colour but you!" He screamed, then, a whispered "Finite" revealed her right eye and her panick grew.
"I-I will fix it!" She felt Black's face come near hers and she shut her eyes, expecting the bloom of pain he was surely going to inflict on her. "I swear I'll fix it but please... please let me go." She ended in a whisper, trying to control her breathing while the tears rolled down her face. Suddenly, a book was heard and she was roughly pushed to the floor on top of her belongings.
"What a ball of cowards you all are." Severine heard a voice in a foreign accent say aloud. "Why don't you pick a fight with someone your size?" She had her hands around her head, trying to protect herself.
"This is none of your business, Bjorn." Black wheezed out, and she forced herself to open her eyes to see what had happened. The crowd was dispersing and Potter had ran to help Black, Lupin and Pettigrew were rooted to their spots like the cowards they were.
"It is when you're clearly abusing someone without a wand." Then Severine saw Potter raise his wand, but Bjorn had been faster and he and Black were tied on the floor, Lupin and Pettigrew did nothing, they were white with fear.
Bjorn approached her and extended his hand, she took it and he lifted her effortlessly, then, with a flick of his wand, hers was in her hands, her bag was fixed and he was carrying her books atop his.
"Come. We're gonna be late for class." Severine felt his arm surround her shoulders, squeezing her in comfort when they passed the Gryffindors and Black's angry gaze sent a shiver down her spine.
***
Severine's tentative friendship with Bjorn grew stronger after that day, but it definitely solidified when during the winter holidays Eileen died. He was the one she contacted when she found her mother's cold body the day after Christmas. Just a day after they talked about their plans for when Severine graduated. Bjorn took care of everything, allowing for Severine to grieve in peace. Eileen's Muggle employer paid for her funeral and buried her in a Muggle cemetery. The money of the insurance was not much, but it would help Sev stand on her feet for a while until she got a job after Hogwarts.
Back in school, things got a little... terrifying. Death Eaters were actively recruiting the seventh years, and she could barely do enough to keep her head down with Regulus following her everywhere now that all the school knew she was his brother's soulmate. Black, Potter and Co. started following her everywhere, apparently they found a way to override her invisibility charm, one time Black cornered her alone in an unsupervised corridor and she felt his disgusting hands on her body; she didn't know how it happened, just that one moment his hand was around her neck and the next he was blasted against the opposite wall. She took the opportunity to run back to her dorm. Bjorn never left her alone after that.
" I want to do it." She whispered, slamming an old, dusty book on the table in front of Bjorn.
"Do what?" He asked after dispelling the cloud of dust that made him sneeze. He took a moment to read what it was about. "Absolutely no. I forbid you from making something you might regret later. Sirius Black is not worth the price to pay for this." He continued, deadly serious.
"It's the only way to get rid of him for good. I..." she felt her throat constrict at the thought of telling Bjorn Black had tried to kill her. She took a deep breath and started again. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a misserable situation... just like my mother."
Bjorn sighed and hugged her to his side. After her mother's burial, Sev had told her all about her life and what Black and his stupid friends had done to her, but he had a good guess on what had happened that Severine was scared shitless of the idiot. He reread the ritual presented to him earlier, if Sev was truly willing to pay the price to get rid of Black for good, then he'd help her and get her through it.
"If you really want to do this, I can help you, but you need to at least take some time to think this through." He held a hand to shush Sev before she interrupted him. "I'm just asking you to think if it's worth it. I will be with you no matter what, you've become a sister to me and I want your wellbeing, but this is... just promise you'll think it through."
Severine nodded.
The first day, she had reread the ritual until she memorized it, the second she pondered the pros and cons of it, what she'd do once it was well and truly done. The third and fourth days she had some doubts... her mother had wanted her to become the greatest potions master to ever exist... but her mother was no longer here. On the fifth day, one of her classmates approached her and subtly tried to recruit her to the Dark Lord's cause, her mother's thoughts about that man came to the forefront of her mind... She subtly implied she was not interested, and that seemed to paint a target on her back... now not only Potter and Black played awful jokes on her, her own house joined them. Even Regulus. The sixth and seventh day saw her steeling her resolve. She was not welcome in the magical world, so the decision was simple and obvious.
Bjorn kept his word. He helped her in all he could: from buying the ingredients for the potion, to finding an adequate place to perform the ritual. The months went by so quickly that by the time they realised it, they were already taking their NEWTS and welcoming the families for the graduation ceremony.
Severine had no one to show up for her, nor close friends, except for Bjorn, that could celebrate with her from afar, so she took the time to prepare everything in an unused classroom.
Bjorn had departed the previous day to Dumstrang where he was to celebrate his graduation, but he gifter her with a two way mirror that Severine could use to contact him should she need him.
When the ceremony started, everyone had already taken their places next to their families, so she decided to sit at the back, she was one of the last names to be called anyway. She heard Black's name being called and she felt fear invade her when, while shaking hands with McGonagall, he turned to show his diploma to his friends but caught her eye. His intense staring made her lower her sight to her shaking hands... then it was Lily's turn. She didn't even acknowledge Severine.
By the time her name was called, not a single should was heard. No one clapped for her. Who would want to be associated to a poor, lowly half-blood that everyone used as a punching bag? Not even Dumbledore shook her hand when he gave her the stupid diploma. She felt her cheeks burn with shame and embarrassment, and her eyes prickle with unshed tears of sadness. In a way, she was glad her mother wasn't there to see this.
Quietly she went back to her place, and when the last student had received his diploma, she quietly stood up and left.
***
Severine had to be very careful. She only had one chance to make this right. There was no going back now. The school was quiet, the families had already left and the graduates were sleeping for the last time in the place that they called home for seven years. She was alone in an unused classroom in one of the hidden corridors of the second floor. She drank a black potion with golden swirls and her heart felt heavy with sorrow. A few minutes later, she placed her wand inside a rune circle and covered it with holy wood, then, she pinched her finger and let three drops of blood fall on it.
Her heart felt like it was going to burst in a million pieces, the weight of the sorrow invading her crushing it against her chest. She let out a pained sob and started chanting. Dark and gold tendrils of magic erupted from her heart and surrounded her, lifting her from her kneeling position and levitating her in the center of the room, encasing her within a bigger circle of glowing salt runes. Moments later, she fell to the ground, her head pounding and her heart lighter.
When she was conscious enough, she picked herself up and went towards her trunk, getting her mother's Muggle mirror and observing her reflection. The ritual had worked, the price had been paid and she was finally free.
Severine could see how, slowly but steadily, her right eye darkened in colour until it was her natural black. She retrieved her wand from the floor, it felt like any other piece of wood... her magic had gone. She placed the mirror and her wand inside the trunk, put on her best coat and dragged her trunk to the castle's entrance. Severine walked the distance until se reached the gates, turned around and looked at the castle one las time, glad that she wouldn't have to go back to the place she was tortured for a long time.