Soulmate Stories

He liked to caress her hair. She remembered that when they were alone and no one could see them he liked to let his long thin pale fingers run through her pigtails. Sometimes he would slowly and carefully undue her brown locks from their confinement and let her hair fall all over the place. Sometimes when they were fully alone and he was sure no one else could find them he would have her undress until she stood naked before him, the only thing covering her innermost parts her long brown hair and shy hands. The cold air of the dungeons caressing her as he eyed her like one might an extra slice of cake at the dessert table.

He liked that even when she tried to defy him even in that little way he liked that she was embarrassed. He liked how he was her only experience and would always be her only experience. Sometimes in dark broom closets and forgotten classrooms he would even hold her gently and with care as if he was holding something precious. They would sprawl out on a quickly Scourgify couch and he would hold her in his arms running his hands through her hair. When he did that she tried to enjoy it and ignore that quiet little part of her that said it felt like less of an embrace and more the slow strangle of a python's body around a mouse. 

That’s what he called her, too, his little mouse. He liked to say with his voice like honey hiding vinegar almost purring the sound. Putting special emphasis on his when he said it. Sometimes when he was annoyed at her though he called her other things. He did other things.

He didn’t like it when she wore her hair down any other time, he didn’t like anyone else seeing this part of her that was meant to be his. He didn’t really like when she was noticed at all. Sometimes when she was younger and more desperate for attention she tried not to think of all his rules as restrictions. She tried to pretend it showed that he cared.

He used to be very particular about such little things too. Of course the big things mattered as well but those were easier to learn, to follow no it was the little things that tripped her up the most. No make up was a big thing, easy to follow but sometimes he would want her to play the reluctant seductress and then she had to have blood red lipstick and long black eyelashes. Sometimes he would have her take a polyjuice potion to make her look like the girl he was trying to woo. Said she was ugly that he needed something more. She always hated those days the most, he always hurted her the most those days. 

She knew that she was ugly but it didn’t seem to help the sting everytime he reminded her how lips were too thin. Nose to round like a pig he would say. Sometimes he would say she was starting to look like a pig that she needed to eat less. Sometimes he would enforce that command. 

Still it was the little rules that truly tripped her up: don't smile at that boy but smile at that one. Hunch her shoulders here but straighten them there. No skirts shorter than her knees and her stockings had to be completely whole. Said she was a slut if she let her stockings become too thin in the wash. That only sluts shined their shoes or wore a blue tie. She was sure that sometimes he would change the rules just to have an excuse to justify what he would do. 

She tried not to think about that though even as she was. It was better to pretend to be some crying angry creature. Sometimes she even fouled herself. After a while people had stopped coming to her bathroom. Her attitude driving all away. They call her moaning Myrtle and sometimes when she curls into a little bawl and remembers the bad days she thinks that he was the one to spread the name. That he thought it funny for her to constantly be reminded of him every time someone called her by it. That he intended it to be a reminder who her owner was before he came to retrieve her. 

They thought her a ghost, some spirit vengeful over her death, sometimes she wished she was, sometimes she wished that was all she was. That she didn’t have the dark magic coursing through her keeping her as if she was an object to be placed on the shelf. That she didn’t have his promise on her lips when he kissed her that day. 

She remembered the day that they found out they were soulmates. It wasn't special or even that odd. It was raining and they were getting on the train. He was a prefect and she was a third year and it was the day everyone was supposed to go to hogwarts. The bullying hadn’t gotten that bad yet more spiteful comments than anything for someone who hadn’t made any friends and didn’t know how to fit in. 

Ravenclaw wasn’t like Slythrien in their blood purity but it was the 1940’s and even if it wasn’t she was ugly and spiteful and vain. It was a horrible combination and she was too young to realize she had it. Still the truly horrible things would come later when he got involved using his charm and sly hands to make it seem like he was her only protector. That he was her everything. 

She had lugged her suitcase behind her the corridor too small to move about properly or cast a levitation charm on the bag. The air smelled like excitement and the floor was soft carpet with little Daisies on a white background. Other children were passing by her bumping into her there. She was elbowing her way through the passage when as she passed an empty compartment someone's leg tripped her. 

There was a body beside her and she fell into it, the one she toppled over into letting out a surprised “ohm.” She moved quickly off him scrambling in embarrassment when his hand came up to push her hard and harsh. His skin touched her shoulder and then with a snap the connection locked in.  It didn’t take longer than that either, something that was supposed to be so vital to life and all it took was some glancing blow. 

His fingers continued their motion almost unconsciously and then she was being pushed up banging her head hard against the corner of the cushioned bench in the car making her let out a quiet groan. Her hand flew up to touch the now quickly forming bruise as used her other hand to clutch at the cushioned wood and push herself to her feet. Her eyes closed in pain. 

Then before she even realized it she was being shoved aside as one might a largr bag  pushing her into the bench seat as she felt a body move past. She thought at the time that her soulbound took one look at her and was so disgusted he had tried to run away. But she put that thought away when a moment later as she blinked her eyes blurry getting the spots out of them she heard the apartment door click shut. 

When her eyes had finally cleared she looked up into brown ones not plain like hers though no these ones were deep and rich and seemed to have an entire rainbow of brown in them hints of gold here and there adding texture and richness. She immediately felt a flash of jealousy at something stirring in her chest.

She took him in fully and she was almost ashamed of how handsome he was as much as she liked to act as a foolish schoolgirl. He had sharp cheekbones and a strong nose, thick hair but mainly thin lips. She could see he was handsome elsewhere as well all long limbed in with a runner's build. He looked aristocratic. He looked like the man on the cover of a teen girl’s weekly. If there was one thing she learned in life it was that boys like this don’t end up soulbound to girls like her. She remembered feeling a pit drop in her stomach at that. 

As she took him in he did the same standing tall in the entrance way as if to block her from escape. His conclusion about her was clearly projected on his face and it wasn’t a good one. 

He spoke then in this voice that was like chocolate and mahogany and all the things a voice should sound like. “So you are her.” He said it like it was a declaration, like by saying it he was in some way establishing a claim to her.

She just stared at him wide eyed until a displeased frown appeared on his face and she realized he wanted an answer so she nodded her head in her quiet way of things. 

He took her in then for a moment more, his frown growing more displeased but then he moved away from the doorway sitting across from her as if a king before a subject. Crossing one leg over the other and using long fingers sprawled out across his knee. Her eyes caught on them their long thin design and sallow complexion seeming to catch the light in a thousand intercrate ways.

“What is your name, girl?” he asked, as if already bored with the answer. 

She told him her thoughts felt foggy as if something was poking at her brain but she paid it no mind. No, she would learn all the little tricks he had for minds later then she was a third year student who had no idea how someone could even poke at the mind.

When she told him her name he frowned in displeasure and asked if she was a muggle born. She said no but her real father had left her mother and she had remarried a muggle. His face went a little cold at that but now she was so fuggy like everything was wrapped in bubble gum she didn’t really care about anything. 

Then the boy raised his wand as one might flick a finger and mumbled another word “Legilimency.” After that she didn’t really remember much or in a way she remembered too much as searching through her memories brought everything to the forefront of her mind. Like he had some right to her most private moments she started to hate him then not as much as she hated him now but she started to hate him. He always found it amusing and said that she was an angry little mouse that if she needed more attention he would give it. 

He left for a while putting her to sleep for a few moments and then he came back and continued his inspection of her mind. After, after she woke up and had her leaning against him as he hummed softly tapping one hand against a knee well the other was wrapped around her waist. The cotton candy feeling was still in her brain and she couldn’t think a single thing. 

He noticed her wake up. He always noticed her wake up and when she even in her haze tried to wiggle her away from him he just tightened his hold and made this soft almost cooing sound like she was a startled animal. 

She didn’t really protest after that though just lazing a head full of something against his shoulder as he used his thumb to rub slow circles into her hip. She thought she should be more alarmed that he had pulled up her shirt a little so the skin was touching skin but she just giggled a little from the feeling of it finding it funny. 

They stayed like that for a moment or two sitting quietly together when his rich voice began to speak the words nothing but sounds to her brain and yet imprinted nonetheless. As if forcibly being shoved in the empty space of her mind. 

He said many things then said how they would have to be careful that no one would know. That as his soulmate she would have to follow certain rules even if no one else knew. She just giggled again as his thumb slid over her hip bone. Said that some of the clothes her mother had gotten het to fit in better would have to go. Said she wasn’t allowed to show too much skin, that he planned to be a kind of politician and that his soulmate had to fit that image. Said that know he knew she would be watched no more fluttering her eyelashes at muggle boys. The latter words made his nail dig into her skin a little and his grip to tighten as she let out a little whine.

Trying to squirm away from the pain but he only pressed in harder. Then he went on and on and on. A long list of tenants of whom she could talk too, how she could dress, where she could go, everything and anything.  

Eventually when we started to get closer he had her change. She tried to resist for a second or two something in my mind screaming at her to fight back but then he looked into my eyes once more and with a quick movement of his wand all resistance fell away. He watched her then seeming to take her in as if She was a slab of meat he had unexpectedly been given. Making her pause when all my clothes were removed he frowned at the hair on my legs but another wave of his arms and burning on my skin that almost broke through the haze and the hair was gone. Frowned at the chub on my belly but that didn’t have such a quick fix. Then She was changing again putting on the school uniform. Tying up my hair in two pigtails and putting on my ugly glasses. One more assessment and then She was sitting as he told her gazing out the window as he slipped out of the carriage leaving her with the command to meet him later the next night.  

She don’t remember much else after that the feast passed by the sorting then stumbling to bed. When She awoke She stumbled around until one of the teachers noticed my dazed look and sent her to madam Pomfrey. She thought She had a fever, something that gave her a headache. She laid her down and told her to get rest. 

In the night he came to visit her first. It was quick he snuck in at least She think he snuck in knocking the healer out and then standing above my bed. She think She smiled up at him and reached my arms out to him but something was stopping them. He had casted the sheets into knots around my wrist keeping her in place. She thought it odd at the time but giggled thinking it funny. He just smiled down at her casting a few spells later She would realize were a silencer charm and a charm to keep anyone from entering the room. 

Then he sat down on the bed, his body compressioning the cushions, the creak of the springs the only sound in the room. There was no one else in the room. Then he was looking down at her thoughtfully petting my hair. 

Another silent spell and the haze finally lifted. She screamed. She think She screamed my thoughts snapping back to her in an instant. Everything that happened becoming into sharp focus. She twisted away from him trying to just get away as far away as humanly possible but my restraints just tightened keeping her in place as She kicked and bite and did everything just to get away. 

He froze her then a quick verbose spell and She couldn’t move a muscle. She just stared at him, my arms bouncing around in my skull just trying to get away. 

The gentle smile on his face fell away then and the monster came out as he looked at her with cold calculating eyes. 

He said in that sweet voice of his and he countied to pet her like some animal that he wanted her to say something and if She did he would let her move again. She tried to show through my eyes that She would and he smiled gently again and murmured how She was such a good girl. The words making a shiver run down my back. 

“Promise her he asked, promise her that you will make an unbreakable oath that you will obey me.”  She froze then so terrified She couldn’t think just stared at him blankly. She tried to shake my head and tried to say no, no. She couldn’t do that but She couldn’t move a muscle. 

He seemed to get what She was getting at and well he always did like “Crucio.” There was pain so much it filled every nerve ending until all seemed to be blaring at her in one solid scream of white blinding pain. 

Then well then he was petting my hair again as tears fell from my eyes, the only part of her capable of movement. 

He asked again and despite the pain, despite what She knew was going to happen She still couldn't so he did it again. Then again, then again and everytime he would ask and everytime She would refuse. But eventually eventually it gets to you the pain the helplessness gets to you and you're just stuck in this need to make it all stop. She wasn’t anyone special, a thirteen year old who liked to cry alone in the bathroom. It didn’t take long until She gave in. 

So he asked but seemed to know the answer. So She made an unbreakable vow then another then another. Three in total. 

The first was that She would always obey him, the second was that She would never betray him, the third was that She would never allow herself to die. A stupid vow but one agreed to without thought. 

Then he was whispering sweet nothings to her as he petted my hair and She cried softly. 

When She woke up next it was Madam Pomfry was scurrying around humming happily under her breath. She looked away not wanting to see her. 

She was the first She learned not to make eye contact with but not the last. 

For a long time it stayed that way. Sometimes he would tell her to visit him and She would be petted and caressed and then sent back as he murmured his complaints at her who he wished to kill or hurt. His plans, his many plans, he seemed to enjoy the fact he knew She could never disobey him. 

By the end of the year hogwart a girl was dead and She knew Tom Riddle was the one to do it. She was quiet but sweet as a button she would never hurt a fly and she lay dead frozen forever the look of horror on her face forever etched into her soft skin and thin bones. 

He was ecstatic when it was done when he was finally able to make a Horcrux he didn’t spend the first night with her of course no it was a few nights later a day after the school was to be shut down until the danger passed that he came to her and gripped my arms in his and then kissed her deeply. 

It was not a gentle kiss, lips on lips pressing together as if to meld them. Then his tongue was in my mouth and She gave up trying to get away. Exploring the flesh as one might dissect a rat. When we finally came up for air he was laughing he did it he stated he did it. Then he was swinging her round and round in the air. 

Then Hogwarts was closed early and we all were allowed to leave for the summer. She was fourteen and the acne was fading due to the expensive potions Tom had forced down my throat during the year. She wasn’t any prettier, still long limbed and sunken with a pinched look and long drooping ears. 

He visited her that summer but She don’t really like to ruminate on the memory of when he was eighteen and the trace on his wand was gone. He tracked her down fairly easily; he already knew my address and a simple train ticket took care of the rest. 

She remembers running down to the front door to answer it when someone knocked and came upon his face. It was shocking and horrifying a thousand million things that really hit her all at once. She remembers flinching back fairly violently. My mother asked who was at the door. She was sitting in the living room embroidering and my father was there drinking a scotch and reading the newspaper. 

She tried to scream for them to run to go and get out as fast as possible but a near silent command and She was yelling back that it was someone who got the wrong house. My parents didn’t question it. He told her to go over and join them so that he would be in a moment and not say a word. So She did my vows making it impossible to do anything else. Then She was walking stiffly as if in a dream until she entered the ornate room. Neither of my parents looked up and She couldn’t draw their attention. He came into the room a moment later and then my parents reacted at the sound. Not fast enough though not nearly fast enough he went for my mother first a quiet but quick spell then she was dead, her throat slit. To this day She don't understand why he didn’t use “Avada Kedavra.” Her blood soaked into the persian rug we owned staining the expensive fabric as She watched her bleed out in front of her powerless to do anything else. Then my father was lunging in the background but another application of a silent wand movement and he too was falling. Dead by the time he hit the ground Riddle had nearly decapitated him. 

She was crying this silent weeping sometimes. She doesn't think She ever stopped. He came up to her and in some false embrace my parents blood still in all his hands he hugged her and told her how much he loved me, how he was the only one she needed. 

She couldn’t really remember any of that though all she remembered was looking at the setting sun watching the yellow ball slowly crest beyond the horizon watching the sunlight die. That’s what she remembered. 

He had her call the police to say it was a mugging. He stayed with her until they came and then a few memories charmed later and they left having written up the report. 

Then he had her shower washing the blood off and when she laid down on her parents bed trying to clutch at their scent one more time he joined her hugging her to his chest as tears fell down her face. For the rest of the summer he stayed with her and he had the neighbors clean up the “mess” as he called it. Obviating them after. He didn’t like her going out much at all so she stayed indoors reading the books in her room and crying softly. He had the sweet old lady from two streets across who could cook better than anyone else in the community move in with them and “convinced” her to act as their live-in maid. Sometimes she would try to speak to her to see if she was even still there but everytime the old woman just stared silently back with glassy eyes. 

The night after she tried to curl up in her own room to just get away but he didn’t like that so he told her to come back to her parents room and she did. They would curl together his arm tight around her waist. 

People would come, some of them she recognized the other boys mostly that he liked to hang out with though she was always told to go upstairs to her room when they came and not to make a sound. 

Then the summer passed and she was going back to hogwarts. He told her before she left that he would have her watched and to not do anything he would disapprove of. She didn’t even try to disagree, just nodded her head and left a blank look in her eyes. 

She made no new friends at Hogwarts but it was a relief to not feel so constantly watched. 

The years passed like the teachers ignoring her ever more tired eyes and the summers spent with Tom as he became more and more demanding. When he was twenty he told her that she would always be ugly and that she should be glad to have him as a soulmate. 

When she was seventeen he came home very drunk, the alcohol harsh on his breath and fell into bed with her holding her to himself and letting his hands wander for the first time. His fingers creeped over her stomach until he reached her breasts tweaking the nipple as she let out a startled hiss and froze in pure fright. He groped them for a second or two rolling them in his hands as if to explore. He let go a moment later resting his hands back on her waist and falling into a deep sleep. 

She knew that he wasn't going to be his first or even his tenth but he took a pervasive pleasure in being her only. 

He didn’t bring it up the next day and neither did she. As the old woman who she had learned was named Elizethbeth served them. Whenever he needed money he would just convince someone in the neighborhood to give him some and then obliviate them. She had no other family and they didn’t even hold a funeral. 

He was going a different route than what he had originally planned, using his connections to get into the ministry of magic he had quickly rosen the ranks until becoming an Auror himself. It was a prestigious job and he was prestigiously proud. 

It was when she turned eighteen that he started to look at her in different ways, always so controlling but now with a possessive edge to it. He became even stricter with his rules and she wasn’t even allowed to leave the house now. He had gotten a house elf sworn to him who made sure she followed his rules religiously. 

He had split his soul four more times at that point and he looked at my aging and frowned.

 It happened one fall day I remember being in the girls bathroom, the one that poor sweet child was killed in washing my hands when he came in. She knew his footsteps and looked up with surprise across her face. His own face was cold as ice. 

There was a look in his eyes, a look she knew well and she desperately tried to get away. Desperately tried to do anything but what that look meant. She asked him what he was doing there and he said with a surprise expectation she knew that was a lie but something desperate held her tongue. When he got close enough a few feet away he lunged and she tried to run but she had vowed and so only toppled instead her own feet disobeying her. She screamed and she remembered screaming and clawing and biting. She remembered other things too him tearing her skirt and she tried to hurt him with a look of concentration on his face. 

Then he was fumbling with his belt. It was inelegant and looked stupid but she was too terrified to think about that. Eventually he freed it and well after that all she remembered was pain and soft grunts as she lay on the cold bathroom floor. 

When she awoke next she was in the form she was currently in and he was leaning against the pillar with the bathroom sinks in them. She remembered trying to hurt him to hit him and make him feel the pain he forced her to endure but when she did she simply went through him. He laughed at her then a satisfied look on his face. 

He told her then that she was a partial ghost and that she would remain so until he came for her again. 

Then he left her his partying words a demand for her to be good. 

She heard of him throughout the year's youngest ministry of magic ever crowned, hearing of Dumbledore's death at Grindelwald and them killing each other in some epic duel after he escaped his confinement. She heard of the rising pure blood faction how Hogwarts had become hostile to muggle born. Still no one visited her much after the first few years and so all she could hear was whispers on the wind. 

He came to her on March 25’th 2028. He looked as he always did if a little older still handsome with sharp cheekbones and a kindly mask. His shoes were leather and were quiet on the luminanm floors. She was sitting by the window watching the stars in the sky. 

She looked up curios to who could be visiting her when she saw his face as he stopped in the middle of the room looking up at her. 

He opened his arms wide and she just stared at him in something like shock but deeper. 

“Come” he purred as if she would be pleased with him. She laughed then the sound was harsh and unhinged. 

He just sighed and then with command in his voice “come.” he repeated.

She just continued laughing. He dropped his arms and then with a wave of his hand he was pulled toward him as he pulled out a jewel from his pocket that seemed to suck her in. 

For just a moment there was confusion, a kind of pounding as she tried to get out and then she felt air on her skin for the first time in over a hundred years. She gasped clutching at herself. 

He had her stand using his arms to lever her weak body up until she was starring in one of the dirty mirrors. It was her hollowed cheeks and all just as she had been when he had done this to her. 

He let her fall back against him, his one arm wrapping around her waist as the other played with a piece of her hair. He meets her eyes in the mirror with his own. Beautiful brown on ugly brown. 

“It will be nice to have you back.” 

All she could do was use her new tear ducts to let a single silent tear fall. 

He simply moved his head, his lips against her check and kissed the side of her face. Licking the tear away. 

He took her away to a fancy estate then one with guards and several house elves and where no one would meet her eye. Dressed her in the finest of apparel with large sparkling jewels. 

She never left that house, not for many hundreds of years ageless and kept like one of the fine jewels he draped across her throat. 

And always he would remind her that he did it because he loved her.

She would sometimes think she hated him most for that.