Chapter 1
When Harry is eleven, he learns in his Intro to the Wizarding World class (which everyone is required to take, regardless of blood status or how they were raised) about soul marks.
“They could happen at any age, and there's a wide variety of ways they might appear—from something as clear as a name to as vague as a simple swipe of color. We've been studying them for centuries, but we still don't know why they appear, how it's determined what they look like, or why some people are born with their marks while others might take decades to get them.”
He goes on, and most of this, Harry knows, but there's one thing he doesn't. A muggleborn raises her hand to ask if getting a soul mark will hurt.
The professor smiles kindly at her and says, “No. That's one thing all soul marks have in common. If you're asleep when it happens, you'll wake up none the wiser. If you're awake, you might feel a tingle of magic, but it’s usually described as comforting and soft. They never hurt.”
The girl sits back and smiles, calmed by this answer. But Harry frowns and taps his fingers over his heart where his soul mark sits. He remembers getting his. He was asleep, but the burning pain of it woke him. He was delirious, but he remembers the worried and determined looks on his parents’ faces. And he remembers the pain.
When Harry is fourteen, he stands in front of his mirror shirtless, staring at the phoenix over his heart. He's never asked his parents about his mark because he knows it would be bad. He knows… well he's not sure what he knows. Other than that he should never ask them about it.
Because one thing he definitely knows—definitely remembers—is that before this massive phoenix appeared when he was nine, there was a name there.
The tattoo—because that’s what it is on his chest, not a soulmark—is imbued with magic, which is how it managed to grow with him instead of distorting as he aged. But the soulmark under it is imbued with even more magic—and it never wanted to be suppressed.
It doesn’t take much. Harry focuses his mind and his magic on the little swirl of magic he feels over his heart beneath the ink, and the name shines through. Just for a moment, because the light is so bright, it startles Harry into breaking his concentration. But it’s long enough for Harry to see it. See it and remember. Of course he remembers. He knew what a soulmark was, and he had read the name on his a thousand times, so excited to grow up and meet his soulmate. Before his parents covered it.
But now he remembers. The name, the strange dream (or what his parents tried to convince him was a dream), the weeks of recovery because his magic tried to fight back against the tattoo. And the name. The name, the name, the name.
Tom Marvolo Riddle. The Minister for Magic.
He puts on his shirt and crawls into bed, and now he’s more sure than ever that whatever is going to happen tomorrow cannot possibly be good.
In the morning, Albus Dumbledore arrives. Harry’s parents told him Dumbledore would be visiting, and though they didn’t say what he would want to discuss, his father’s eyes darted quickly to Harry’s chest, and though it was covered by his clothes, Harry knew his father was looking at his soulmark. That was why Harry wanted to finally know. To finally remember.
But even knowing what was under the ink, even knowing his parents worked with Dumbledore against the Minister, he could not have guessed this.
“No,” Harry says, though he was already shaking his head before Dumbledore finished speaking.
“My boy–”
“No,” Harry interrupts. “I won’t make any such vow.”
Dumbledore sighs heavily and then starts again with how important it is that Harry never talk about his soulmark to anyone and how he needs to take a vow to keep it covered at all times and never allow anyone else to see it or touch and how Harry must vow to never so much as speak of it.
It’s funny, Harry thinks, that they would make this demand of him after they have already covered it. If Harry didn’t have those memories—of what it was before, of the painful tattoo—he would never know why his parents and Dumbledore wanted him to hide it. He does know, but he can’t tell them that.
“Why is this so important? I’ve never heard of anyone being asked to take this kind of vow. How can it possibly matter to anyone what my soulmark is so much that you would ask this of me?”
Dumbledore goes off again about the danger of anyone finding out and adds in a bit about how Harry’s parents’ political rivals may try to manipulate Harry and so on, but he still just seems to talk around and around it without ever giving Harry a clear answer. He hates to think that he may have agreed to this if he didn’t know. If he had spent his life trusting his parents and their good friend Dumbledore, would Harry have simply heard Dumbledore say how important this is and agreed? He doesn't think so, but he's grateful he knows enough now to be able to say for certain he won't do it.
Harry says no again and walks out, ignoring his parents trying to call him back. No doubt he’ll be in trouble for this, but even knowing what he does, he can’t justify taking a vow to never speak of his mark. And no matter that his parents believe Dumbledore when he says Tom Riddle is some sort of dark lord biding his time to take over the magical world and ruin everyone’s lives, he can’t forgive any of them for trying to ask this of him.
When Harry is sixteen, he begins the year with a visit to the ministry with his yearmates. Not all of them, of course, but those who did well enough in their OWLS and those who were interested in visiting all go together for a tour and to talk to a few people around the ministry.
Harry has no interest in working for the ministry. He has no interest in any of this. Except for one thing.
He doesn’t get to speak to the Minister one-on-one, of course, and he didn’t expect he would be able to. He just wanted to see him. Tom Marvolo Riddle. The name under the ink. The reason his parents can barely stand to look at him anymore.
They haven’t said it, of course, but Harry knows from what they have said—and from what they won’t say to him anymore—they think having this man as his soulmate has somehow damaged Harry. Has made him into someone else. Has turned him evil. He speaks to his parents as little as possible these days. He does his best in his classes, and he’s the captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team. But he does his best not to stand out otherwise. He doesn’t show off with his magic, and he mostly keeps to himself and his circle of friends. He’s been pulling into himself for years now, and most people don’t even remember how outgoing and happy he was in his first year. Now, they only remember the quiet and dedicated student who only has time for homework and quidditch. He thinks it’s better this way.
Even as the Minister speaks to the group of sixth years, Harry keeps his attention away from Tom Riddle’s eyes. The Minister has no reason to try to read the minds of a bunch of students, but Harry doesn’t trust his own mind in the presence of his soulmate. He worries if he met Riddle’s eyes, he would project the information. He hasn’t yet decided if he wants to reveal the truth to him at all, but if he does, he’s sure he at least wants to wait until he’s seventeen, if not graduated.
So he keeps his eyes off the Minister’s face and listens politely and then heads back to Hogwarts with everyone else.
When Harry is seventeen, only a few weeks from graduating, his parents flee the country. Harry still doesn’t have all the details, but aurors came to Hogwarts to detain him and a few other students and bring them to the ministry for questioning. He’s glad they use veritaserum instead of legilimency. He can talk around questions, even while telling the truth. He would not be able to keep the truth of his soulmark out of his mind. He’s grateful they don’t ask about it—they have no reason to.
Instead, they ask about his parents and what they’ve done and what he knows about it. This is easier—he doesn’t know anything about what his parents have done. His parents have always been somewhat distant with him, and it’s gotten worse as he’s grown older. Whatever they might be up to, they’ve never told him about any of it.
There are things he’s figured out, things he’s picked up from overhearing their conversations and guessed from who and what he’s heard them speak about. But they don’t ask him about his thoughts or guesses. They ask about what his parents may have told him. And they haven’t told him anything.
In the end, he gets to go back to Hogwarts. For all the good it does.
He may not have known anything, but now the world knows James and Lily Potter were involved in an attack with the terrorist group the Order of the Phoenix. No one died, but many were injured, and all identified members are criminals who are all on the run.
A few students didn’t return to Hogwarts after being questioned, so people assume they were involved in some way. And though Harry was sent back with his name cleared, that doesn’t change anything for those who are disgusted by what his parents did.
He only has to defend himself from hexes and jinxes and people attempting to corner him for a few weeks. He may have kept to himself, but he was not weak.
He starts racking up detentions for the first time in his school career. But he doesn’t fight them. It’s better for his professors to blame him and keep an eye on him than for him to be caught outside the view of a professor. It’s only for a few weeks.
He’s honestly surprised he does as well as he does on his NEWTs after the stress of the past month. And after the way a few of the proctors eyed him like he was just as guilty as his parents. He was legitimately concerned he would be graded unfairly. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. He leaves Hogwarts with straight Os and then leaves Britain with what’s left of his family’s belongings. His family never tried to reach out to him, and he returns the favor. He simply graduates and then leaves.
When Harry is twenty-five, he returns to Britain for the first time since graduating Hogwarts. He’s made a name for himself as a curse breaker and rune master, and he knows many of his classmates regret the way they treated him at the end of his seventh year since he and his firm refused to work with them.
But he’s not here to rub it in.
He’s here because the one member of his family he’s kept in touch with all this time has called him back. Sirius has never minded following Harry’s trail around the world during his apprenticeships and masteries to meet up with him. But now Sirius is asking him to come see him, and Harry has no real reason to say no.
When he arrives, he sort of wishes he had come up with a reason.
His parents have been found and arrested. Over the past years, they’ve tried again and again to cause issues for the Ministry. Terrorist attacks and attempted kidnappings and attempted assassinations. Through it all, they’ve never once tried to contact Harry. He almost appreciates their lack of attention.
But now they’ve been captured, and though Sirius knows how much Harry doesn’t want to see them, he explains it would look better for Harry to be there for the trial. And anyway, Harry is Heir Black, so maybe it’s about time he actually start learning about the house of Black for his future duties?
Harry sighs but agrees.
The trial is an absolute circus. There are many who had likely forgotten about Harry but who see him again and assume he’s there to help his parents. They assume he agrees with them and has always secretly helped them.
That opinion disappears quickly when one of the first questions his parents are asked under veritaserum is if their son was involved in any of their plots.
“No,” they spit. “We never told that traitor anything. We could never trust him.”
And then people start to look at him differently. Though it’s not until they get into the whys that people begin to look at him with pity.
“His soulmark,” his parents say, disgust still evident even through the veritaserum. “He’s mated to a dark wizard. How could we ever trust him?”
People try to ask more questions, but Harry finally steps up and silences his parents. The Wizengamot members try to argue against this, but Harry stands firm.
“They’ve answered your questions about me. They’ve told you I was never involved. Anything else you ask them would always come back to my soulmark. Are you really going to demand I reveal my mark? Or my soulmate? For what purpose? You know now I was never involved. Do I need to get myself a lawyer to prevent you from revealing information about my soulmark?”
This shuts them up.
There is no law that demands anyone reveal anything about their soulmark or the identity of their soulmate. In fact, there are laws stating that you can’t ask someone about it, and that you can’t ask someone about someone else’s mark. This was veering into dangerous territory, and they all realize that he’s right. Harry Potter was never involved in any of this. His parents identified his soulmate and decided they could never love him.
It stopped hurting years ago, but that doesn’t mean Harry wants to relive it now.
The trial moves on, but Harry can feel the eyes on him. Many people keep looking back at him, curious. They want to know who his soulmate could possibly be that would make his own parents turn against him. And they likely want to know why Harry isn’t with his soulmate now. But that is no one’s business but his, and he has no intention of revealing it just now.
But when Harry looks up to catch the eyes of one particularly insistent watcher, he sees him.
Tom Marvolo Riddle. Watching Harry with curiosity. Harry simply raises an eyebrow at the former Minister and then returns his gaze to the trial.
When Harry is still twenty-five, his parents are sentenced to Azkaban and then broken out of their cells within a fortnight. Harry is already planning to leave the country again, but after a discussion with Sirius and the aurors who stop by to interview him, he decides against it. His parents’ trial proved he wasn’t involved, yes, but there are some who would love to blame him for anything by association, and it would certainly look suspicious if he left the country right around the time his parents were broken out of prison. He grits his teeth and agrees to stick around for a while with the understanding that he has some international clients who he will need to leave the country to see, but that he will cross those bridges when he comes to them.