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Anthony Goldstein’s parents are soulmates. Most mornings, they come down for breakfast with matching good morning, loves written on their arms in the other’s respective handwriting. He knows not everyone is so lucky; a lot of people never find their soulmates.
He hopes that he’ll be lucky, too, though he learns early on not to bank on it.
Most mornings, his soulmark read some iteration of good morning. Anthony tries to start each day with something unique to say.
Neville Longbottom wakes up every morning to something new on his arm. Whoever his soulmate is, she definitely seems to know what she’s doing.
Before he can think better of it, he usually says good morning to Trevor or his mum or dad rather than saying anything clever or unique. But it’s fine.
His parents aren’t soulmates, and they’re madly in love. There’s no reason that he needs to marry his soulmate, either.
“Do you think Trevor could be their brother?” Anthony whispers to Hermione during their b’nei mitzvah class.
She rolls her eyes and shushes him. He should have known better than to try to talk to her during class. Even though he’s sure she’s going to do better than anyone else, because that’s what Hermione does.
He waits until after class to ask her again. They’re packing up when he says, “My soulmate mentions someone called Trevor a lot. Do you think Trevor could be their brother?”
“Possibly,” Hermione says. “Or their husband. Or boyfriend. Or son. Flatmate. Could be anything. It could even be a pet.”
“A pet named Trevor?”
“It’s a possibility. Honestly, Anthony, there’s no point in getting so fixated on it. Unless you wake up and say My name is Anthony Goldstein and I live in Finchley first thing, there’s really no saying how likely it is you’ll ever meet him.”
That’s it! “Hermione, you’re a genius! I don’t tell you that enough!”
“They might not do anything. If you do that, don’t wait on any sort of reply.”
My name is Anthony Goldstein and I live in Finchley.
Well then.
First of all, unless his soulmate is lying (possible), his soulmate is another boy. And he lives in London, too.
Neville stares at his arm so long that his dad comes in his room to check on him.
“All right?” his dad asks.
Neville yanks his sleeve down. “Yeah,” he says. He realises a second after he says it that that’ll be on his soulmate’s arm for the rest of the day. Until he says something tomorrow morning.
“Some people do meet their soulmates,” his dad says.
“Did you?” he asks.
His dad sighs and sits down next to him on the bed. He pulls up his sleeve, and there are his words: Not yet in unfamiliar handwriting. And they’re black. Your soulmark only turns black after you meet.
“But Mum isn’t your soulmate.”
“She isn’t,” his dad agrees. “But I… I came of age in the eighties. I knew early on I wanted to be a lawyer, and – it would have been too difficult.”
“Why?” Neville asks. His father had married his mother not terribly long into their careers.
“Because I’ve known since I was about fifteen that my soulmate was another man.”
Oh.
“We’re still friendly. But we both knew… Neville, you’ve no idea how much better things are now.”
“But you’re not gay, right?” He can’t be; he’s married to Neville’s mum!
“No, I’m not. I’m bisexual.”
“I see.” He really doesn’t see, but that seems like the most mature way to handle this news.
“I love your mother very much, and I would never change a thing about my life right now. And neither would he. Some people act like marrying your soulmate is the end-all, be-all. It isn’t. Sometimes you’re happier as friends, married to other people.”
It’s not like Anthony gives up on his soulmate, but he has a lot of obligations. It’s easy not to let his soulmate take up too much of his time. He still tries to say something unique first thing each morning, but his soulmate has yet to respond in kind whenever he says his name.
So his soulmate probably doesn’t want him to know yet. Which is fine. It’s fine. He’s always been aware of the very real possibility that his soulmate is someone he’ll never meet.
He goes on dates – with girls as well as boys. He’s never what one would call “popular”, but he’s clever and friendly and does his best to be kind (even when it’s hard), so as he gets older, a lot of people start showing interest in him.
None of them seem to be his soulmate, and that’s okay.
His cousin Naomi meets her soulmate before she’s even out of primary school. He’s a bit jealous, if he’s honest, but he tries his best to be happy for her. At that age, no one really knows how to navigate knowing their soulmate, anyway. Her parents are soulmates, too, but like Anthony’s, they didn’t meet until they were young adults.
So he’s not totally concerned.
He has plenty of time.
His soulmate might not even speak English. It’s not uncommon. Sometimes, in such cases, the words are only translated one way and not the other. Perhaps his soulmate hasn’t contacted him because they can’t understand him.
(So he learns how to introduce himself in French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese, just to try to cover some of his bases. He’s already tried Hebrew, with no result.)
Really, though, he has a strong feeling his soulmate speaks English. Trevor continues to be the recipient of many a morning greeting, and that’s not a name that seems like it’d be common outside of the English-speaking world.
When he’s sixteen, he gets a proper boyfriend – a goyishe boy from one of the recreational football clubs nearby. His words aren’t black yet, either. Anthony lets himself focus on his actual boyfriend rather than a soulmate who may or may not want anything to do with him.
When Neville is sixteen, his best friend Harry looks up all the Anthony Goldsteins on Facebook.
It’s not as if Neville told him. Harry happened to see the words before Neville covered them up one morning (they’d spent the previous night watching horror movies while their parents were working late on a case).
So now Harry knows Neville’s soulmate’s name, and because Harry is an impulsive arsehole, he’s decided to determine just which Anthony Goldstein is Neville’s soulmate.
“You’re lucky,” Harry says as he scrolls through the results, and Jesus Christ, there are a lot of Anthony Goldsteins, apparently.
“Why’s that?” Neville asks.
“You know your soulmate’s name. I’ve never seen mine’s. It’s always bring me a scone, or some other posh bollocks.”
Neville doesn’t quite know how he feels about Harry’s LARPing as, well, not posh. “Your father is a barrister and your mother is a doctor. We live in Fulham. We go to public school. Wasn’t your grandfather even knighted by the queen?”
“Yeah, which means this arsehole is more posh. I once saw them say something obnoxious about having servants. Who has servants anymore?”
“Maybe your soulmate is a noble.”
Harry snorts. “Fuck, I hope not.” He clicks on one of the profiles. “Why do none of these wankers say where the fuck they live?”
“Maybe one day he’ll say his phone number first thing. Or email.”
“Or you could! Just say your email first thing tomorrow, and he’ll contact you! Loads of people apparently do it that way, now!”
Neville doesn’t know. There’s something sort of romantic about the chance of it. Besides, Harry’s parents are technically soulmates, and they’ve been divorced for over a decade. Being soulmates isn’t a guarantee of anything.
“Why don’t you?” Neville says instead. “If your soulmate’s not given you anything to go off of.”
“I will,” Harry says, because he takes nearly everything as a challenge. “You know… Goldstein’s a Jewish last name.”
“I’ve figured that one out,” Neville says. Sometimes he feels like he might bite the bullet and try to find his soulmate, and during one of those moments, he’d taken the initiative to search up anything he could find. That his soulmate was likely Jewish was one of the first things he learned.
“You’ve probably just got to go to the synagogues in Finchley and ask after him. Someone will know him. Jewish geography is a thing we all sort of do. Someone will say ‘Oh, Anthony? He’s my niece’s uncle’s sister’s nephew!’”
Neville rolls his eyes. “I think even Finchley’s too big for that.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Anthony goes to Edinburgh for uni. He still hasn’t met his soulmate, but he’s had a boyfriend, and, later, a girlfriend. It’s all been nice; he really liked them both, though he doesn’t think he was in love with either of them.
His ex-boyfriend accused him of being too caught up in the fantasy of meeting his soulmate and to give it up, because seventy percent of the people in the world never even meet their soulmate. There are over seven billion people on the earth, and only one soulmate for each person. Anthony thinks that statistic is a bit skewed, personally, but he doesn’t argue.
Hermione reminds him often that he has plenty of time. She hasn’t met her soulmate yet, either. She doesn’t seem bothered by it.
He studies medicine, like his parents.
He’s heard the story of how they met hundreds of times, and if he starts frequenting the bakery where they met, he doesn’t really think anyone can blame him.
Hermione’s not there to stop him. She’s studying law at Cambridge, because she’s Hermione Granger, and anything less would have thoroughly shocked him. They text every day, and Skype every weekend, and if he doesn’t tell her about the bakery, well, that’s just because it’s not that important. It’s a bakery.
It’s where he meets Padma during the second week of uni.
Padma Patil is unfairly gorgeous. She’s tall, with brown skin, dark brown eyes with flecks of gold, black hair that looks blue in the sunlight, and a small spattering of freckles across her nose (in which she wears a little blue stud). She’s studying biochemistry, which isn’t medicine, but there’s enough common ground that they can follow each other’s complaints about lectures and readings and exams.
She’s not his soulmate, but for the first time he starts to wonder if that’s really so bad.
Neville ends up at Durham. Harry goes to Cambridge. It’s not as if the separation is something that makes Neville more anxious than starting uni so far away, in and of itself. Especially since Harry was always going to be in a different degree to him.
But, well, it’d be nice to have him here.
He makes friends in his college – Seamus Finnigan, who’s Irish, and Dean Thomas, who’s from London, too. It’s not like he and Dean are the only Londoners at Durham, but Dean seems to be one of the only other freshers who’s not insistent upon only talking about academics.
Dean talks about art and history and West Ham United. (Neville neglects to mention that to Harry, a diehard Chelsea supporter, when he mentions his new friends). He talks about boys and girls, and when he gets drunk one night during Epiphany term, he confesses to Neville that Seamus is his soulmate.
“Definitely never thought my soulmate would be a white Irish boy.”
Neville’s not used to talking about soulmates (Harry never really mentions his anymore), but he says, “My soulmate is Jewish.”
“Have you met them?”
Neville shakes his head and shows Dean his soulmark. Maybe he’s drunk, too. Everything feels a bit fuzzy. He’s not been drunk before, so he can’t be certain. If this being drunk, he thinks, it’s rather anticlimactic.
“‘Padma get off; you’re crushing me’,” Dean reads. “Who’s Padma?”
Neville shrugs. He hasn’t looked at his soulmark in a while, he realises with a start. “Maybe his girlfriend.”
What if his soulmate expects him to be a girl?
“How do you know it’s a bloke if you’ve never met him?”
“He told me his name.”
Dean pulls a face, like he’s trying to make sense of that. “But how?”
“I suppose that’s the first thing he said that morning. On purpose.”
“Oh,” Dean says. “But you never did the same thing?”
“Meeting your soulmate isn’t a guarantee it’ll work out. My best friend Harry’s parents are soulmates, and they’ve been divorced for fifteen years. My dad knew his soulmate – and they were friends – and they never – they were never even together. It works out for some people, but I don’t see the point in getting all worked up over it.”
“But what if it does? Your soulmate’s meant to be perfect for you. What if he’s perfect for you?”
“What if he’s not?”
Anthony wakes up to find a new name on his arm. Dean!
Just that. Just the name.
It’s one he hasn’t seen before. He’s seen Trevor a lot. Harry sometimes. Mum and Dad, but then most people see those at some point. But Dean.
Dean is new.
He knows he shouldn’t feel jealous. He has Padma. He loves Padma. He should be happy his soulmate seems to have found someone, too.
“The fucking prick’s at Cambridge,” Harry snaps when Neville answers the phone.
“Hello to you, too.”
“You don’t understand,” Harry says. “He’s at Cambridge. I’ve met him. The fucking scones and servants prick.”
Neville pieces together then that Harry means his soulmate. “I’m sorry, what?”
“He was revising in the library with a girl, and I happened to walk by and make eye contact, and I guess that counts as meeting, and no one tells you it burns like fucking hell.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Of fucking course I talked to him! I asked him why he never wrote me an email! Honestly, we made such a scene it’s a miracle we’ve not been expelled.”
Neville can’t say he’s surprised. “Let me guess: and then you went back to your room to snog?”
Harry laughs. “Can’t say we made it back to my room at first.”
“Is he as much of a posh wanker as you thought?” Neville asks.
“Worse.”
“How is he worse?”
“You’ll see when you meet him,” Harry says.
No one ever really told Neville how lonely it would feel when all of his friends seemed to find their soulmates before he did.
He knows he can find Anthony Goldstein from Finchley any time he wants. He knows he can give his soulmate his name in the morning, maybe even his email address, and get in contact with him. He’s still waking up to new words every morning, and even though his soulmate appears to have a girlfriend – he knows his soulmate wants to meet him.
And surely being friends with your soulmate is better than never meeting them at all?
When Anthony is twenty years old, he and Padma move in together.
It seems right. They’re in love, neither of them have met their soulmates, and Anthony is becoming more and more convinced as the days go by that that doesn’t really matter.
His soulmate has never really tried to contact him, never given Anthony their name, despite Anthony having given them multiple opportunities, and he really can’t wait forever. He wakes up with the same rota of names on his arm, when there are names mentioned: Trevor, Harry, Dean, Seamus, and, less frequently now, Mum and Dad.
Padma, though. Padma wants him. She wants to be with him. And she’s beautiful, clever, funny, and creative. He loves her. She loves him. They make sense.
He’s twenty years old, and two years into a six-year programme, so he’s not quite thinking about marriage or the rest of his life just yet. But when the thought does occur to him, spending the rest of his life with someone who isn’t his soulmate doesn’t fill him with dread. Especially when the other person is someone like Padma.
He celebrates Diwali with her. She celebrates Chanukah with him. They get on with each other’s friends.
Her sister comes to stay with them for a weekend, and though it’s not the first time they’ve met, Parvati makes it abundantly clear that she approves of him.
He brings her home for Passover that year, and his entire family – from his parents to his cousins and grandparents – don’t miss a beat. They ask her about her degree, how they met, what her family is like.
And they don’t bat an eye at her spending the night. After all, he’s twenty-one by that point, and his parents treat him like the adult he is.
Hermione is in town (also for Passover), and she meets Anthony and Padma for lunch.
It’s hardly the first time Hermione’s met Padma, but Hermione is in rare form today. She’s complaining about her friends from Cambridge.
“Honestly, Anthony, you’d probably get on with Harry, really. It’s just – he and his boyfriend are so over the top! And they’re having a party tonight because Harry’s dad’s out of town, and I won’t know anyone!”
“I’d love to go, but we’re going to my uncle’s show tonight.”
Hermione sighs. “I’d be a shitty friend if I tried to convince you to skip it for the party, so I’m not alone, wouldn’t I?”
“Just a bit.”
“Maybe we’ll see if we can stop by after,” Padma says.
For the record, Neville hates parties.
He’s always hated parties. Well, parties like this, anyway. When he was younger and parties were still about cake and gifts, he didn’t mind them so much.
But now… now parties are loud, full of drunk people, and just… really stressful.
Throw in the fact that Harry will definitely be distracted by his boyfriend the whole night…
Yeah, he’s not looking forward to it.
Dean’s home for Easter (and, more importantly, term holiday) too, so he agrees to come with him. It’s really just round the corner, at Harry’s dad’s house (Jem is out of town on business for the next two days, and Harry’s learned to take advantage).
Dean meets him at home and they walk over. He’s met Harry before, but not Harry’s boyfriend, and the prospect seems to excite him for some reason.
“So this bloke’s more posh than you?”
“I’m not that posh,” Neville protests weakly. “It’s hardly as if I’m nobility, or even one of those, y’know, hedge fund people.”
“No; your dad’s just a solicitor and your mum’s just a barrister, and you’re just from Fulham, not Chelsea.”
“I’m not saying I’m not even a bit posh, but in terms of how posh, I’m really not that high up there. Harry’s boyfriend’s mum’s middling nobility, and his dad’s some sort of new money business mogul.”
“Neville, if you’re taking me to a Tory party, I feel like I should warn you I will cause a scene.”
“Harry’s not a Tory. And I don’t think his boyfriend is, either.” He doesn’t think Harry’s boyfriend is a leftist, by any means, but he’s heard Draco complain about his parents’ Tory politics multiple times.
Dean seems to accept this response, and they make their way to Harry’s dad’s house. They can hear it before they can see it. Neville thinks it might be worth turning around and playing sick, but Dean makes him go in.
Harry greets him with a hug; he’s already wasted. “Neville! Draco! It’s Neville!”
Draco only raises an eyebrow. “I can see that.”
“And you brought your friend! Don’t tell me! Dean, isn’t it? Here, have a beer, both of you!”
Anthony’s uncle is a fantastic actor, and when Anthony was growing up, he’d ensured that his only nephew had a serious appreciation for the performing arts. So it’s only natural that whenever Anthony is home on holiday, he makes sure to see whatever show his uncle is performing in.
This time, it’s a new play by some up-and-coming playwright, in which Anthony’s uncle who is, conservatively-speaking, the most openly gay man Anthony has ever had the pleasure to meet, plays an extremely heterosexual character.
He knows his uncle wouldn’t have taken the part if he didn’t want to, but sometimes it is pretty jarring to see him act straight.
But that’s not as jarring as the fake soulmark on his arm.
It’s industry standard, of course. No one ever expects actors to have their real words out to show the world. Actors used to get around this by wearing long sleeves, but now, more often than not, the method used is makeup and prosthetics. (And, of course, as his uncle’s character is hetero-married to his hetero soulmate, he has fake words written on his arm where his real words are hidden underneath).
By the time Anthony and Padma catch up with him backstage, the fake soulmark has been removed, and his real words, thick and dark, read If you don’t turn that alarm off, Daniel, so help me in familiar handwriting.
“I overslept a bit,” his uncle says by way of greeting. His husband – Anthony’s other uncle – gives him a rueful look. Anthony gets the feeling he doesn’t want the details of why his uncle overslept.
“You were great,” Anthony says instead. Padma agrees enthusiastically.
“Thank you so much for the tickets,” Padma says.
“Anything for my favourite nephew and his girlfriend.”
Only nephew, but no one corrects him. They make small talk for a bit, but then his uncles want to go home.
When Anthony checks his phone for the time, he sees it’s not nearly as late as he’d anticipated. “We can still go to Hermione’s friend’s party if you’d like.”
“It sounds fun,” Padma says. “Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve drunk you under the table.”
“Hey, I’m not that much of a lightweight.”
Padma gives him a look.
“All right, I am, but it’s not my fault. I’m Jewish.”
“I’m not sure that’s a thing,” Padma says.
“It’s definitely a thing. You were just at my family’s Passover Seder, like, two days ago.”
“Your family isn’t every Jewish person. You’re hardly the first Jewish person I’ve met, you know, and you are the biggest lightweight.”
Anthony feigns being terribly wounded. “Tell me how you really feel.”
She leans in and kisses his cheek. “It’s all right. I love you anyway.”
He laughs, and they walk together to the Tube.
Neville wakes up the morning after Harry’s party fully dressed in his bed with Dean. He’s extremely hungover. He thought he had hangovers before, but he knows now he was wrong.
He sees a flash of dark on pale skin, and he knows it can’t be Dean’s arm. But it could be marker, or something. It doesn’t have to be what he thinks it is.
He tries to remember the night before. He can remember getting to the party, but not leaving.
He remembers Harry pressing a beer into his hand. He remembers doing shots at Dean’s insistence. Seeing Hermione, one of Harry’s Cambridge friends. More alcohol, this time with Draco. Guitar Hero. Dean and Harry arguing about football. Hermione and Draco arguing about politics. A lot of people he never met. More alcohol.
Then waking up.
Most of the night is a either a blur or just missing entirely.
He forces himself to look at his arm.
It’s his words – his soulmate’s words – unchanged from the previous morning in all ways but one.
The words are black.
Shit, we overslept!
Oh, fuck!
The words are black. They’re black. Anthony is hungover as all hell, but right now that doesn’t matter. He never throws up from drinking too much. Why does he feel sick to his stomach?
His soulmate was at that party. And he’d blacked out.
He must have met them when he was black out drunk.
He has no idea if his soulmate is even a man or a woman. Or anything about them, really.
Just that they’re human and were in London last night.
Padma shifts beside him. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.”
“Me, too.” He knows he has to tell her. She’s his girlfriend. She deserves to know.
But he really doesn’t want to spoil anything.
He loves her.
Besides, they’re both hungover. It can wait until after breakfast.
The thing is, Neville knows who his soulmate is.
Just because he’s not woken up with the name Anthony Goldstein on his arm for several years doesn’t mean that he’s somehow forgotten.
He might even still live in Finchley.
Harry might even know him (but Neville thinks Harry would probably tell him if he’s met anyone named Anthony Goldstein).
One of Harry’s other friends might’ve invited him, then.
But the thought of admitting he met his soulmate whilst black out drunk and can’t remember it is humiliating.
Maybe his soulmate – Anthony – will judge him for being a lightweight. Or drinking in the first place. He doesn’t think he could stand that sort of humiliation.
It’s easier to ignore it than face the possibility of rejection. Especially since he’s pretty sure his soulmate is in a relationship with someone called Padma. (What if his soulmate expects him to be a woman?)
So, even though his head is pounding, he goes to his wardrobe and pulls on a hoodie.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Right?
Anthony is happy with his life.
He loves his programme. He loves his girlfriend. He loves the flat they share and the time they spend together. He loves Edinburgh, his mother’s hometown, which now feels as much home to him as Finchley ever has. He loves the Jewish community here. He loves his friends here; Terry and Michael and Lisa and Ernie.
He sometimes questions whether he wants to move back to London after he graduates.
He thinks he’d be perfectly happy to stay in Edinburgh. Of course, he’ll miss his family, but he can visit.
Padma stays on in Edinburgh to do her Masters, which coincides nicely with the fifth year of Anthony’s programme. They’re both quite busy, and see less of each other than they’d like, but they still live together.
Even when half of their friends move away, either to other universities to continue their studies, or to start their careers. Padma makes the decision to stay in Edinburgh for her Ph.D., too, because she loves the city as much as he does.
Anthony is acutely aware that his Foundation Programme might take him away from Edinburgh, and he and Padma discuss the possibility of maintaining a long distance relationship. But, as it turns out, he needn’t have worried. He gets placed in Edinburgh.
Neville becomes a teacher. He’s not sure he’d have foreseen that when he was younger, but it’s what makes the most sense to him.
He gets a post in London, and for a while, he stays with his parents while he saves up money for a flat.
Dean and Seamus move to London, too, and they offer to go in on a flat with him, but Neville knows by now that that would be a bad decision. Harry and Draco, too, offer to flatshare with Neville. He declines for the same reason.
He’s never really had a serious relationship, and he sort of thinks that his friends think he’s jealous, or bitter, or insecure. He’s not. His parents just keep their more involved displays of affection in their bedroom, and his friends do not. He likes being able to eat breakfast without having to watch people snogging at the table.
But when Hermione, Harry’s friend from Cambridge, finishes her degree and moves to London for her next steps, she asks Neville to go in on a flat. He’s not sure why he agrees. Hermione, quite frankly, terrifies him. She’s intense, and not always in a good way. More than once, she’s lectured him on grave injustices that he’s really had nothing to do with.
She’s a bit of a control freak, especially when they move in together, but he’s a rather tidy and quiet flatmate, so they don’t really ever get into rows.
They mostly keep their own lives separate, which suits him. She has her friends, and he has his. Sometimes they’re the same people (i.e. Harry and Draco), but often they’re not. That’s fine by Neville.
And maybe he does start to fancy Hermione, just a bit, which is incredibly stupid because she would eat him alive. He doesn’t tell Harry or Draco, but Seamus laughs out loud.
“If I’d known you go for bossy, intense women, I’d have introduced you to my family.”
“Shut up,” Neville says. “It’s not as if anything’s going to come of it. We’re flatmates.”
“That’s what they all say,” Seamus jokes.
Still, he lives with Hermione until she gets a post that makes the commute unbearable – and with a pay raise that means she can afford a better flat. He finds a flatmate he gets on with, a footballer called Ginny, whose brother knows Harry through their own amateur football club.
Ginny’s never met her soulmate, and the words on her arm are in a language neither of them can read, but which Ginny informs him is “Georgian, apparently.”
It makes him feel a little less lonely. Even though Ginny has a girlfriend.
She introduces him to one of her friends from high school, Luna, who is beautiful with dark blonde hair and wide grey eyes.
And, well, it’s not like Neville’s ever seriously believed he’ll marry his soulmate.
Anthony gets a job offer in Edinburgh after he finishes his Foundation Programme, so he stays. He’s fully licensed to practise anywhere in the U.K., but by this point, he’s lived in Edinburgh for eight years, and while he makes sure to visit his parents for Passover and a few more times throughout the year, he really doesn’t go down to London as often as he’d anticipated.
It is, after all, a long train ride.
And, well, if he’s perfectly honest, he’s happy with his life. And he has a strong feeling that his soulmate might live in London. Or, at the very least, they happened to be at the same party in London as Anthony all those years ago.
Padma took it really well when he told her. She assured him a lot of people meet their soulmates in forgettable ways. That it’s more common than he thinks.
That even knowing who your soulmate is is no guarantee of things working out in the long term.
What he and Padma have is a relationship built on trust, commonality, respect, and attraction. They can (and do) talk to each other about anything and everything. He loves her. She loves him.
By this point, they’re practically a part of each other’s family.
When he finishes his Foundation Programme, he starts to seriously consider the possibility of marrying Padma. They just make sense. So what if she’s not his soulmate? Does that really matter?
They’ve been together for over eight years.
Neither of them are ready for children yet, and they haven’t discussed the intricacies of potentially raising an interfaith family together, but… he sort of thinks that they maybe should do that soon.
Except then Padma gets a job offer in Paris.
And his plans are put on hold.
Long distance. They’ll try long distance. They’ve made it nine years so far, after all.
It’s easy to say that Neville falls in love with Luna.
She’s everything he’s ever wanted in a partner. She’s clever, beautiful, kind, compassionate, and thoughtful. Sure, she’s a bit spacey (more than a bit, really), and honestly just plain weird a lot of the time, but she is who she is, proudly, and there’s something that Neville finds quite attractive about that.
He’s not as self-conscious as he could be, he knows, but he’s nowhere near as self-assured as Luna.
He’s not sure that anyone’s as self-assured as Luna.
When they start dating, only Hermione is unsurprised. Over a coffee, she says that she saw it coming. He’s not totally sure he believes her, but he knows better than to argue.
Luna is his first real relationship. He’s talked to people before (mostly girls, if he’s honest), but that’s not the same thing.
They’ve been dating for nearly a month before he shows her his soulmark. That day, like most days, it references Padma.
Luna takes one look at it, shrugs, and says, “I’m sure it’ll work out someday.”
He’s not sure what he expected, but it certainly isn’t that.
“The statistic that only thirty percent of people meet their soulmate is inaccurate,” she says. “That’s the number of people who marry their soulmates, and just those who admit it. It doesn’t account for people like you.”
So he tries his best – he really does – to forget about his soulmate and fall head over heels in love with Luna. And he does love her. He does.
But it’s not the same as he’s always thought it would be. He loves her, but seeing someone else’s words on his arm every morning isn’t something he can just get over.
He asks his dad, one day, “Do you ever think, if you’d been born thirty or forty years later, that things might’ve turned out differently with your soulmate?”
His father, after all, seems very happy with his life as it’s turned out, even though he also wakes up every morning to someone else’s words on his arm.
His dad fixes him with a look he doesn’t quite like. “You mean if society had been significantly less homophobic?”
“More or less, yeah.”
His dad hums. “I dunno. Maybe. It’s hard to give a finite answer to that sort of thing. Things turned out as they did, and I’m quite happy with my life.”
“What if you’d never met Mum? I mean – did you – did you love him?”
“He was my best friend, Neville. Of course I loved him.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I suppose if I’d never met your mother – if he’d never met his wife – and society had been as accepting of gay relationships as it is now… it’s very possible we might have tried to make things work, but as you know from Jem and Lily, there’s no guarantee of that, either.”
“My soulmate is another man,” Neville says. He’s never told his father this before, though he doesn’t expect him to be surprised. “We, er – we met at a party six years ago, but we haven’t seen each other since. I don’t even really know him.”
Something changes in his father’s expression. “You know by now that more people meet their soulmates than who let on. In the end, it’s really between the two of you; you know your mother and I just want you to be happy. Soulmate or no soulmate.”
It isn’t quite the advice Neville hoped for, but he knows his father has a point. “Thanks.”
But the thing is, his soulmate’s got a girlfriend. Or fiancée. Or wife. There’s a woman he wakes up with nearly every morning.
Until he doesn’t. Or at least, her name stops appearing on his arm.
Luna gets a research fellowship in Southeast Asia that she can’t turn down, and Neville doesn’t see much of a point in long distance, especially since she isn’t his soulmate and he isn’t hers. He doesn’t want to be responsible for any sort of conflict she might feel if she meets her soulmate on this trip, and it’s just easier to resolve to stay friends.
About a month after Luna leaves, he wakes up to words on his arm in the same familiar handwriting, bold and black, that seem to be addressing him, specifically: Good morning, soulmate who evidently doesn’t care I exist, my girlfriend of nearly a decade just dumped me, so if you can think of anything to cheer me up, I’m open to suggestions.
He has to read it several times through.
He’s careful not to say anything, but he thinks, quietly, that this explains Padma’s name’s absence on his arm. He thinks over what to say (after all, his soulmate will see the words as soon as he utters them), and then says in one breath, “Looking up cute animal videos on YouTube always helps me feel better – and I do care that you exist, and I’m sorry that you’re going through this.”
It’s worth a shot, anyway, right?
Anthony doesn’t expect a reply, but then the previous morning’s Fuck is replaced by the first words his soulmate has ever spoken to him directly (at least as far as he can remember).
He snaps a photo of the words and saves it to a new folder on his phone. Just in case. He knows it’s entirely likely his soulmate just feels bad for him in the moment, and that they’ll never contact him again.
It’s not as if, at this point in his life, he anticipates marrying his soulmate anymore.
Maybe he’s been put off marriage on the whole, now.
But when he gets home from work to the flat he shared with Padma for seven years, it’s too much to bear. So he goes to the café around the corner and watches cute animal videos on his phone.
Hermione calls him to check in. And Terry. And Michael. And his parents. And uncles. And cousins. It’s a bit much, but he appreciates the support.
At least until Ernie storms into the café, exclaims “There you are!” and informs him that, as it’s a Friday night, they need to go out drinking.
He doesn’t drink enough to get drunk, because he really doesn’t want to be at the pub in the first place, but he sees that Ernie’s picked up by his boyfriend, and accepts Justin’s offer of a ride home.
The next morning, he thanks his soulmate when he wakes up. Within an hour, the words of the previous day are gone, replaced with It’s the least I could do, though I should probably tell you I’m a man.
He knows his soulmate knows that he’s a man. Which… now that puts a lot of things into perspective. A lot of people don’t realise they’re not straight until they’re in uni or even older, though Anthony knows he realised that he was bi, personally, when he saw Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings for the first time.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have accepting, open-minded parents and gay uncles. He knows he’s privileged in that aspect, too.
And he went and told his soulmate his name when he was twelve.
He doesn’t know how old his soulmate was (or how old he is now), not really, but he thinks the chances are pretty good that his soulmate is around his age.
The next morning, his first words are “I’m bisexual.”
An hour later: I wasn’t sure, with the girlfriend.
I’ve known I was bi since I saw Orlando Bloom in The Fellowship of the Ring when I was eleven.
Neville can swear his heart skips a beat when he realises that they’re the same age, give or take a few months.
“I didn’t really accept that I was interested in other guys like that until I was halfway through uni.”
I really am sorry if I caused you any sort of crisis, comes Anthony’s reply the next morning.
Neville doesn’t even think before saying, “I would have had a crisis anyway.”
Still – I was twelve and didn’t really think it through.
Has it really been so long? Part of him feels like it was just yesterday, and another part can’t believe he was only twelve.
“We all do stupid things when we’re twelve,” he says.
Have you ever tried to get in touch with me?
The problem with the words, really, is that there’s no accounting for tone. Is his soulmate curious? Or is he accusing him? Had he waited, wondering when his soulmate was going to contact him?
Neville’s really never been any good at reading people in the best of times, and this has the added complication of not only not having any sort of cues, but also not being able to ask the intention (unless he wants that to be the only thing he says to his soulmate today).
But he needs to answer; he doesn’t want to risk his first words being something stupid and unrelated.
“I’ve considered a few times, but I never quite had the nerve to follow through.”
Oh.
Oh is the sort of words that Neville knows by now are reflex and not thought out (see also: fuck, shit, goddammit, yeah, no, and any number of other one- or two-word replies or interjections). It’s been over a week since Neville first talked to his soulmate, and he likes it a lot more than he thought he would. He likes him a lot more than he thought he would.
So, in the absence of any other words, he explains himself a bit more.
“By the time I’d fully accepted that – not only was I bi, but my soulmate was another man – you already seemed to be in a serious relationship, and I didn’t see the point in coming in to spoil it.”
To his relief, the next day, there’s a real reply. I suppose that explains why I’ve never had anyone claiming to be my soulmate tracking me down.
Neville laughs when he reads it. “Full disclosure: my best mate did look up every Anthony Goldstein on Facebook when we were sixteen.”
Well, I don’t think he found me.
“I think he gave up after the first five profiles.”
I’m shocked and offended that I wasn’t the very first result.
Even Neville can tell that his soulmate is joking. “You should’ve seen how shocked and offended he was that he went through five profiles and didn’t find anyone who might be you.”
My best friend never would have stopped, because she’s honestly the most intense and thorough person I’ve ever met.
Spoken like someone who’s never met Hermione Granger.
“You’ve not met my former flatmate,” Neville says.
Where do you live?
“London.”
Anthony has a whole day to ruminate on that. Hermione lives in London. He’s never met her former flatmate, but he knows about him.
His name is Neville, and he teaches GCSE biology at a public school. He’s their age, from Fulham, and currently single. Which Anthony only knows because Hermione offered to set them up two days ago.
But what are the chances? It’s almost definitely not the same person. There are any number of intense, thorough, and pushy women in the world. He loves Hermione to death, but her intensity really isn’t what makes her unique.
He knows all he has to do is ask his soulmate for his name. Or ask Hermione if her former flatmate is bi, watches cute animal videos to decompress, met his soulmate at a party approximately seven years ago, and didn’t realise he wasn’t straight until midway through uni.
But he can’t.
So instead, the next morning, he asks, “Are you from London?”
Born and raised comes the reply.
He doesn’t want to waste a day rehashing that he’s from Finchley. He knows his soulmate knows that, and it seems like a waste of time.
He’s just not sure what to say next. He could ask about films or music or pets. He’s always wanted to get a dog of his own, or maybe a cat, but Padma is allergic.
But then he oversleeps (not enough to be late to work, but enough that he’s not up an hour before his soulmate), and he wakes up with a phone number on his arm, preceded by As much fun as this is, if you do actually want to get to know me, you can always text me.
Oh.
He has his soulmate’s phone number.
It’s hardly as if he really thinks anything serious is going to come of this. But he texts him anyway.
Anthony: Hello
Soulmate: Hello
Soulmate: Am I correct in assuming this is Anthony?
Anthony: You are though I still don’t know your name
Soulmate: If you don’t mind I’d rather not say just yet
Soulmate: I hope that’s all right
Anthony: Yeah that’s fine
Anthony: I should probably say upfront that I’m not really looking for another relationship right now
Anthony: Considering
Soulmate: No I completely understand!
Soulmate: Honestly I’m not looking for a relationship either
Soulmate: Though I should warn you about Kevin
Anthony: Who’s Kevin?
Soulmate: [photo]
Soulmate: This is Kevin.
Anthony: Omg is that an axolotl?
Soulmate: He is!! I’ve had him for a year now
Anthony: Is he your only pet?
Soulmate: At the moment yeah
Soulmate: But my flatmate has a rabbit
Anthony: Do you have a photo?
They don’t text frequently, and they have an unwritten, unspoken rule about not sharing photos of themselves, their flats, or share potentially (further) identifying information, but Neville really doesn’t know why he didn’t do this sooner.
Anthony seems to like him, and sure, Neville’s sort of terrified that when they do share photos, Anthony will realise that he’s not missing out on anything and decide they’re better off as friends and only friends.
But he can enjoy it while he can.
Ginny comments on his good mood, but he doesn’t tell her. It seems too personal. Too intimate.
Instead, he says something about Kevin, which is technically true, and she accepts it easily enough. Why wouldn’t she?
When Anthony is twenty-nine, he moves back to London.
He loves Edinburgh. He’ll always love Edinburgh. But his family is in London. Most of his friends are in London. And he gets a job offer that he’s too smart to turn down.
Hermione offers her spare room, just until he finds something a bit more permanent. He can’t fathom living with Hermione indefinitely, but it’s got to be better than moving back in with his parents, so he accepts her offer.
Her flat is lovely and homey and filled with more books than any person could ever read (and yet he’s certainly certain that Hermione intends to). It’s not a terrible commute for him, but London on the whole, after so long away, feels foreign.
Hermione’s flat feels like a little piece of home, and as she grills Anthony about a book she recently recommended, he realises how much he’s missed her.
“At any rate, you are coming to my birthday party, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he promises.
“Good,” she says. “Neville will be there.”
She’s been trying to set him up with her former flatmate for months, and her efforts have only increased now that he lives with her.
“If I agree to let you introduce us, will you drop it?”
“I think you know me better than that.”
He does.
Hermione is extremely efficient, so on top of a verbal invitation over drinks with Harry and Draco, Neville receives a Facebook event invitation and an email (with several different calendar links).
It’s not as if he’d miss it.
You only turn thirty once, after all.
Though she does keep trying to set him up with her friend.
No matter how many times he tells her he’s not interested.
It’s not as if he doesn’t ever look at Harry and Draco or Dean and Seamus and feel jealous. He’s only human.
He texts Anthony at least once a week, and at least once a month he makes sure to make a conscious effort to talk to him first thing in the morning, but that’s not the same thing as being with his soulmate.
He still has no idea what Anthony even looks like. He’s mentioned he was Ashkenazi once, but so are Hermione and Harry – and Lily and Remus and all of Harry’s half-siblings – so it’s not as if Neville thinks that really tells him anything about how Anthony looks.
But Dean and Seamus are married, and while Harry and Draco are dragging their feet (mostly because, Neville knows, they can’t agree on what sort of wedding they want; Draco wants to go all out, and Harry wants something small and private), Neville is acutely aware that he has a soulmate. He knows his soulmate, even if the only time they ever met they were too blackout drunk to remember it.
(It’s impossible to deny the relief he felt at reading Anthony’s confession that he, too, is a lightweight who couldn’t remember the night they met).
He buys Hermione a gift off of the registry she’s had specially set up at the local independent bookshop (though he saves the expensive first editions for her friends with more lucrative jobs, because he’s still got Christmas and Chanukah coming up and he’s still a bit skint from dealing with Draco and Harry and Ginny’s birthdays all back-to-back-to-back like that).
He gets a text from Anthony complaining about someone buying a gift he’d been planning on getting someone before he could and replies with a laughing cat emoji, which starts a whole debate on whether Neville is a furry or a scalie (“No judgement but I NEED to know if my soulmate is a furry.” He’s not. Anthony doesn’t believe him).
When he walks into the flat, Ginny is on the sofa with her girlfriend, Cho.
“I’m babysitting Ron’s kids tomorrow,” Ginny says.
“All right. I’ll lock my door before I leave for work.”
She looks at his face then, and frowns. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Just got Hermione a good gift.”
“Ugh, that reminds me. Do you think the two posh arseholes have bought all the good books?”
“Not as of twenty minutes ago,” Neville says. “I’ve just come from the shop.”
Ginny heaves a sigh of relief. “Thank god. I guess I should get dressed and go.” She stretches and leans in to kiss Cho. “You sure you don’t want to come? You haven’t got to buy her anything.”
And, all right. Maybe Neville’s more than a bit jealous of his friends in relationships. But it’s fine.
Really.
“I should have known it was too good to be true,” Anthony says over FaceTime with Ernie.
“Tony, please, please tell me you did not move all the way down to London because your soulmate – whose name you still don’t know – lives there.”
Anthony’s a shit liar. “Not… just because of him,” he says.
Ernie rolls his eyes. “You don’t even know if he’s attractive.”
“I’m sure he’s attractive. He’s my soulmate. I’m fairly certain you’re meant to be attracted to your soulmate.”
“But there’s no clause against scalies.”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Shit luck, mate,” Ernie says.
It’s just a joke, of course, but honestly, Anthony doesn’t think he’d mind if his soulmate is a scalie. Or furry. Or whatever. He just wants to meet him.
“I’m not a scalie!” Neville complains to Seamus.
“You do like reptiles and amphibians more than anyone else I’ve ever met,” Seamus says.
“Yeah, because they’re interesting, not because I want to be one. Or think I am one. But he won’t let this go.”
“Maybe he’s a furry, and this is all just a test to see if you’re one, too.”
“My soulmate can’t be a furry,” Neville says.
“My soulmate’s obsessed with West Ham. West Ham, Neville.”
“If you want to bait someone into a football argument, bait Harry.”
“Fine,” Seamus agrees. “But, really, even if he’s a furry, that’s not a dealbreaker, is it?”
“Well, no,” Neville says. Truthfully, from what he knows about Anthony, he can think of very little that would be a dealbreaker.
Hermione’s birthday party is in the back room of her favourite pub, and because they’re technically temporary flatmates, Anthony goes with her to help set up.
On top of the book (his third choice by the time he got to the shop – her other friends were fast) , he made a sizeable donation in her name to one of her favourite charities, so he thinks she’ll be pleased with her gift.
Harry, one of her other friends, has volunteered to get the cake, as his boyfriend has a car. Anthony’s only met Harry a few times, and the first time, Harry introduced himself as “the only other brown Jew at Cambridge” in such a deadpan tone that he understood immediately why Hermione likes him.
Harry’s boyfriend, on the other hand…
“Oh, and Neville’s coming, too,” Hermione says not insignificantly as he helps her hang banners.
“Why am I not surprised?”
“It’s been nearly a year,” she says.
“That doesn’t mean I need you to set me up.”
“At least let me introduce you.”
He knows it’s the least he can get away with. “Fine.”
Neville takes the Tube to the party with Ginny, who couldn’t convince Cho to come. He loves Ginny; she’s kind and funny and opinionated and aggressively feminist. She’s like the sister he never had but always wanted, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to be a third wheel tonight.
Though she is needling him about getting out there.
“It’s been nearly a year. Honestly, Neville, have you even slept with anyone else?”
“Of course I have.”
“Really?” She stares him down. It’s quite unsettling, really. (Sometimes he forgets that Ginny grew up with six older brothers. Right now, that’s the main thing on his mind.)
“Not, er, not since we – no,” he admits.
“Isn’t Hermione trying to introduce you to her one friend from high school?”
Neville groans and leans his head back against the glass window. “Don’t remind me.”
“She’s dangling a single, probably at least reasonably attractive, guy your age right in front of you. Just, y’know, hit it and quit it.”
He brings his hands up to cover his face. “Gin.”
“Yes, you need lots of gin. I know.”
“Ginevra.”
“Wait, you have slept with a man, right?”
“That seems a bit personal,” Neville says, which is as good as admitting he hasn’t.
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Cocks are meant to be easy, right? I mean, I guess I don’t really know.”
“I’m not going to sleep with Hermione’s friend,” Neville says.
“Whatever you say,” Ginny says.
Neville is all too aware that’s a challenge, not a concession.
As annoying as Anthony finds Harry’s boyfriend, it’s damn near impossible to deny that they’re ridiculously, deliriously happy together.
Which, yeah, does make him a bit jealous, but he’s only human.
Hermione’s parents show up next, and they fuss over Anthony as they always do. At least with her parents, he has an audience for some of the stranger medical stories. The Grangers are dentists, not physicians, but they do have an appreciation for gory medical stories that make most of the people in Anthony’s personal life squeamish.
Including Hermione herself, though she’ll never admit it.
More people filter in, but Anthony’s still distracted by Hermione’s parents until Hermione herself grabs him by the arm, making excuses and telling him he needs to meet someone.
She drags him over to a tall, admittedly quite handsome stocky man, with a close-cut, short beard, evidently not caring that she’s interrupting his discussion with the woman next to him.
“Neville! I have someone for you to meet!”
This is Neville? Maybe he’s been giving Hermione too little credit. She’s got his taste in men down quite perfectly.
The man – Neville – rolls his eyes. They’re beautiful eyes; dark green with long, dark lashes. “Nice to see you too, Hermione. Happy birthday.”
Hermione doesn’t quite seem to have time for pleasantries, which Neville could have figured out from the way she’d rudely interrupted his discussion about the gender pay gap in football with Ginny (which, quite honestly, is the sort of discussion Hermione usually jumps right into).
The man she’s brought along, presumably to try to set up with him, is, Neville has to admit, handsome. Average height, average build, clean-shaven, curly blond hair, stunning blue eyes. He’s wearing a collared shirt tucked into actual slacks, which Neville doesn’t really think too much on. It is, after all, Hermione’s birthday party.
He hates to admit that she knows his taste in men. Which is a bit disturbing, really.
“Yes, yes, nice to see you, thank you.” She rolls her eyes. “More importantly: this is Anthony. We’ve known each other since we were five.”
Wait, did she say Anthony?
“Same class at Hebrew school,” Anthony says.
Hebrew school?
“Anthony, this is Neville. He and Harry grew up together, and the two of us were flatmates for a while.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Anthony says. He’s wearing long sleeves, so Neville can’t see his arms. But he’s Jewish and his name is Anthony – that’s surely too much to be a coincidence, right? Besides, his soulmate has said, multiple times, that his best friend is the most intense and thorough person he’s ever met.
No one fits that bill more than Hermione.
“Pleasure to meet you, too,” Neville says.
His arm doesn’t burn, because he’s already met his soulmate, but Anthony’s hand in his is warm and solid.
If Anthony grew up with Hermione, and he remembers seeing Hermione at that party… it’s surely not a stretch to wonder if Anthony was there, too.
He doesn’t look like how Neville’s imagined his soulmate. He’s blonder. More handsome.
Neville’s looking at him like he knows him, and Anthony can’t imagine why. He’s never met him. Unless...? No.
That would be too convenient.
And he’s not sure he’d ever stop kicking himself if Hermione’s known his soulmate for a fucking decade and it’s taken them this long to get over themselves.
He’s just being ridiculous; he’s superimposing his faceless soulmate onto an attractive near-stranger because it’s been a year since he’s been in a relationship and far too long since he’s gotten laid.
“Ginny, let’s go get drinks,” Hermione says, dragging the other woman off.
“Sorry,” Anthony says. “I know she’s…”
“Intense?” Neville says.
“Yeah.”
“I know. I used to live with her.”
“It’s really just best to play along at this point,” Anthony says.
“Yeah,” Neville agrees. He rubs at his arm. The one that has his words, though of course the words themselves are covered by a sleeve. “So you, er, you said you went to Hebrew school with Hermione?”
“Yeah,” Anthony says, and then he kicks himself mentally. This has got to the the most awkward conversation he’s had in ages! “That’s, er, where we met. And we ended up going to the same high school. But not primary school.”
“My mum and Harry’s dad have worked together since before either of us were born, and we’re a day apart, so we’ve known each other, quite literally, our entire lives.”
“What was that like?”
“Worse for our parents than either of us, I think. Though he got me in plenty of trouble.”
“I can imagine,” Anthony says.
He has to ask. He has to know. He’s sober. Anthony appears to be sober. And… worst case scenario, Hermione just pushed a gorgeous man who’s not his soulmate his way.
“Are you, er, from Finchley, too?”
“Yeah,” Anthony says.
So that’s another point in the Anthony-is-his-soulmate column. “I’m from Fulham. So that’s, er, not too far.”
“Not at all,” Anthony agrees.
Neville tries to think of what to say next, how to possibly close the margin of error, when someone shouts, “Goldstein!” and Anthony whips his head around.
It’s Draco.
It’s fucking Draco.
Which means Harry has to know, and Neville’s going to have words for him, because for christ’s sake, how do you knowingly meet your best friend’s soulmate and not tell him?
“Do you keep kosher?” Draco asks.
“Er, not really, no,” Anthony says. “I don’t eat pork, but beyond that…”
Apparently appeased, Draco turns back to whatever argument he was having with Harry.
“Sorry about that,” Anthony says.
Anthony Goldstein from Finchley.
“It’s fine,” Neville says quickly. “Er, listen. I just want to… I want to make sure I have everything straight here.”
Anthony looks confused, but he says, “All right.”
“Your name is Anthony Goldstein. You’re from Finchley. Hermione’s your best friend.”
“That’s right,” Anthony says.
He can do this. He has to do this. He has to know. Harry had a point all those years ago; how many Anthony Goldsteins were there really in Finchley?
Neville looks nervous as he asks, “You never, er, went to one of Harry’s parties in uni, did you?”
Oh. He doesn’t dare let himself hope. “A few, actually.”
“In, erm, in Fulham?”
Anthony nods. “Yeah.”
“It would’ve been… during spring holiday… er… twenty-eleven?”
“I, er, I did go to that one, yeah. With my, er, girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend now. Girlfriend at the time.”
Neville is staring behind him, not looking him in the eyes as he says, “I, er, I went to that one, too. Harry made me. Brought my friend Dean, and all three of them – Harry, Dean, and Draco – made sure I got completely pissed.”
“Me, too. I mean. I don’t know Dean. But – I’m really quite the lightweight, so it really wasn’t… difficult. And Padma, my, er, my ex, she can really hold her liquor.”
Something flashes in Neville’s eyes when Anthony says Padma’s name. It’s not a common name. And he knows for a fact that it’s a name his soulmate has had on his arm more than once.
Enough to remember it, anyway.
“It’s funny,” Neville says. “I woke up with one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had, and all I could think was how humiliated I’d be if my soulmate knew what a lightweight I was.”
“I think I can relate,” Anthony says as carefully as he can, “I had to figure out how to tell my girlfriend, who I’d just moved in with not six months before, that I’d met my soulmate whilst blackout drunk and had no earthly idea who they were.”
“Harry was absolutely no help. Nor was Dean. Or Draco. Draco’s much more of a lightweight than you’d think. And Hermione, too, for that matter.”
Oh, Anthony forgot that part. “How’d she get home again?”
“I think she just fell asleep in one of the guest rooms. How’d you get home?”
“Took a cab,” Anthony says. He wondered the same thing the next morning, but his call log and credit card bill helped him piece that together.
“I have to say… I’m not going to make a scene because it’s Hermione’s birthday and I’ll never live it down, but… when I get a chance, I’m going to murder Harry for not telling me he’s known Anthony Goldstein from Finchley for years.”
“If it makes you feel any better, we’re not Facebook friends, and he’s not told me, either. Nor has Hermione, and… I find it difficult to believe she didn’t know, either.”
“That might explain why she’s been trying to push us together,” Neville says.
Anthony is suddenly aware that at least four different people must be watching them closely. “You know what would drive them – but especially Hermione – absolutely mental?”
“What’s that?”
“If we don’t let on we’ve pieced it together.”
It’s a great idea. Neville has to give it to him.
Of course, he’s not usually one for pettiness or revenge or anything like that.
But he is absolutely fucking furious that his best friend has known his soulmate for a full on fucking decade and has conveniently never mentioned it. Even if he didn’t think Neville wanted to meet his soulmate, they’re still soulmates. It was their decision whether or not to do anything, not anyone else’s.
So he agrees.
“I’d like that.”
“Not that I think any of them think we’re that stupid, but it might be satisfying to play dumb.”
Neville nods and agrees, and then, quite rudely, pulls out his phone.
Neville: I’ve told you before that Harry’s known your name since we were sixteen!
Anthony looks rather bored as he checks his smart watch. Neville acts like he’s still texting when he sees the response.
Anthony: I know.
“Anyway,” Anthony says, “you studied biology at Durham?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s where I met Dean, actually. And Seamus.”
“So you know Hermione through Harry?”
“Yeah,” Neville says. “They met at Cambridge, and we were all from London, so when I’d come home for holidays, Harry invited Hermione around quite often.”
“I really can’t imagine how we haven’t met before,” Anthony says. He has a point. Neville wonders if it’s because Hermione and Harry were insistent on keeping them apart until Anthony and Padma broke up.
“Me, either.”
Two days later, on Saturday morning, Anthony meets Neville at a café near the flat.
He arrives early, but Neville is already there. He looks even more handsome in a striped jumper than the collared shirt he wore the night before. This is his soulmate. The gravity of this isn’t lost on him.
“Hey,” he says as calmly as possible, because holy shit, this is his soulmate, and it’s only taken them twenty-nine years to find each other properly. He really doesn’t want to scare him off.
“Hey,” Neville says. He looks so obscenely handsome and kind and warm and Anthony is acutely aware that today is the beginning of the rest of his life.
“It’s so good to see you,” Anthony says. He nearly adds that he can’t believe he very nearly never met him (what if he hadn’t gone to that party after his uncle’s play?), but he stops himself.
“It’s good to see you, too.”
Anthony sits down across from him. He wants to reach out and touch him, but he really don’t know him, and he doesn’t want to push his boundaries.
“I’ve, er, thought a lot about this. Over the past, er, seven and a half years and also, more specifically, since Thursday.”
“I have, as well.”
Neville smiles at him. “My parents aren’t soulmates, but they’re madly in love and extremely happy. And Harry’s parents are soulmates, but they’re divorced and still can’t really be in the same room as each other.”
“It sounds like you’re telling me this isn’t going to work.”
“I’m not! Not at all! It’s just that I think a lot of people see finding your soulmate as the end when, really, it’s like any other relationship.”
“Oh.”
“Everyone I know who has a good relationship with their soulmate works for it. Just because someone’s perfectly suited to you doesn’t mean you can take them for granted. Being soulmates doesn’t magically resolve your issues.”
“Of course,” Anthony agrees. “My parents are soulmates, and they’ve always made that abundantly clear.”
Neville looks relieved. “So we’re on the same page.”
“Yeah.”
Neville didn’t expect it to be this easy. He still sort of keeps waiting for Anthony to walk away.
But he’s staying put.
“I don’t expect us to get married in a month, or anything,” Anthony says. “Or go to the toilet and start having sex right now. Not that I’m not attracted to you, but – I think with soulmates, going slow is a good idea.”
Anthony’s attracted to him.
“Going slow works for me.”
“Though…” Anthony leans in across the table. “Are you free tonight?”
“Yeah,” Neville says. He never really thought his soulmate would be asking him on a date. It feels surreal.
Anthony smiles, and he’s so fucking gorgeous. “Great. I know a great restaurant.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been on a proper date like that,” Neville says before he can think better of it.
“No?”
Neville shakes his head. “It’s not as if I’ve never dated anyone, but it was sort of… it just happened. Neither of us really asked the other out on a proper date. Unless you count my ex and I going to the cinema together.”
“I think that counts.”
“Just don’t hold it against me if I fuck up.”
“I won’t,” Anthony says.
“Thanks.”
Anthony smiles. “You know as well as I do that I’ve wanted to meet my soulmate for ages.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?”
“You’re not even a bit disappointed?”
Anthony looks confused. “No, of course not. Why should I be disappointed?”
“You’re like, a gorgeous, competent, brilliant doctor, and I’m just a fat high school teacher.”
“Is that really how you see yourself?” Anthony asks him gently.
Neville shrugs. It is, but it seems a bit much to admit it.
“I’ve texted with you enough – and heard Hermione talk about you enough – to know you’re a brilliant, kind, and compassionate person. Being a teacher isn’t some lesser career, especially if you’re doing it because you genuinely want to help people, which I know you are.”
“I-I guess…”
“And – quite honestly – you’re gorgeous. I’m absolutely attracted to you. You’ve no idea how much self-restraint it’s going to take me to take things slow. But I will, because you’re worth it.”