Work Text:
How do you convey the very complex idea that you are more than willing to die for a single person, even if it's for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, at the wrong place, without him ever knowing that you nearly worship him, and not because he's famous, but because he looks at you, and sees you, just like he's always wanted to be looked at and seen for himself? Add in that the "you" he sees is not the one you see in the mirror, but a "you" so breathtakingly beautiful and perfect, you feel like a goddess when you look in his eyes, and the conclusion is inescapable and even almost logical.
Even if you managed it once, you realize you would have to repeat it at least one more time, although not quite the same way. After all, if you say it to one, you have to say it to the other. And for all their similarities, the differences are marked, but the important things – those are what are so similar, and so the majority of the message would still be the same. Just a different surface covering, to keep them appeased that, yes, you do realize they aren't the same person.
Sometimes, just to stretch your brain some, you attempt to imagine life without one or the other, occasionally both. You quickly realize that it would be akin to suddenly being without an arm or two, or perhaps an eye. It's not something you can image, although you're fairly sure you'd eventually learn to adapt to the differences. The question remains, however, as to how long you could manage it. Mere limbs, well, people have been learning to cope with loss of those for centuries. Besides, Moody's eye may be a bit sickening, but you are willing to admit to yourself that it is pretty cool. And some of those charms are downright incredible, when you remember what your research pulled up on it. Although, really, there has to be a way to make it not stick besides putting it into a glass of water to clean it. That's just so ... gross.
So there are wonderful, magical ways to replace lost eyes, and you figure, probably lost limbs, although you really need to do a bit of research into that, as well, just because it only just occurred to you, and now you're curious.
But you are quite sure, after third year, and your research on the Dementors, and the Dementor's Kiss, that the magical world hasn't figured out how to replace a person's soul, yet. And you highly doubt that the sum total of all the books in the library contains a spell or potion or ritual to return a fraction of a person's soul to them, at least without delving into necromancy or a similar discipline. And you know they would never forgive you for bringing them back from the dead, only for you to get tossed into Azkaban for bringing them back.
They aren't the same person, but sometimes, you think, that between the three of you, there are just enough fractions of a whole to make one whole entity. Because that's what you've felt like, every holiday spent separated from them, since you met them – a sliver of a mirror shattered on the floor waiting for a quick reparo!, or, perhaps, a piece of a very simple jigsaw puzzle that for all the picture changes, the pieces which fit do not. Because, the vast relief when you see them again has always made you feel like you were whole once again, but then again, those short periods of time apart remind you how different the differences are, and how similar the similarities are, but it is still just you three who fit together.
You hope, in those dark hours during those times of separation, that they think of you often. You know you can't stop thinking about them, heart keening for their presences. It's so bad that Crookshanks refuses to sleep in your bed while you are away from them; you keep him awake too much. You are utterly restless without them nearby, you can sleep, but barely – you don't feel safe without knowing they're just down one set of stairs and back up another, if they are indeed that far from you. It doesn't matter that he attracts danger like honey attracts sugar ants. The fact you become an insomniac when apart from them is part of why your parents smile what they apparently believe to be secretive smiles at each other, and try to pry out the information as to which one you are truly pining for ohsocasually. They still don't believe you that you care for each of your boys equally. At least they don't complain when you leave home early to be with your boys.
Parents ... you know his gave up their lives to save his. You are more-or-less sure his parents, even with their large brood, would do the same for their son. Well, sons, because both of your boys are, for all intents and purposes, their sons, now. His mother is rather possessive, and you know she considers you a second daughter, as well. You don't really mind. You think yours would likely to do the same for you, as well. But you know that it isn't the same as what you see yourself doing, when it comes to it. You wouldn't be doing it for the sake of your child. You would be doing it to protect two-thirds of your soul.
You still haven't figured out how to tell them, without it taking the rest of your natural lives. Maybe that is how long it should take. Perhaps all that matters is that your soul repairs itself as soon as you can throw your arms around each of them, and hold on for dear life. Perhaps, if it comes to the point where you really wish you had been able to figure out how to tell them, you won't have to, because they'll figure it out for themselves.
You decide you can't take the chance they'll figure it out on their own, but you still can't figure out how to tell them. So you set to work on more research, and laugh as they wrinkle their noses at the news you want to go to the library again. You know they'll be grateful at some point. Because you intend to figure out what spell you can teach them, in case it is you that falls, or the spell for you to learn, in case it is one of them – or both – who falls instead. A spell which can repair broken souls, which means it would bring the three of you together again no matter what, because you really just are three one-thirds of a whole soul apart, and only together do you make a whole one.
Time goes by, and you worry because you haven't found it yet. Time will not stand still, even for this, after all. And then the time you have been dreading comes, and you still don't have a spell, a ritual, or even a potion to ensure you don't lose them, and they don't lose you. But you have figured out just the right words to convey what you've always wanted to tell them, and now, with the future so unclear, so uncertain, and the possibility you can't even make yourself look at full on any more – because now you know what your life will be like, if you lose a third or more of your soul today – looms ever nearer. You don't trust the two of them to figure out what they mean to you, without your help. So it is with a gentle kiss as you hug each of them for dear life one last time before this decisive battle to come, that you tell them the words to convey that they mean more to you than anything else in the whole wide world – except the other – and you know that goes for each side of this little triangular relationship.
Later on, years later, you realize that the spell you were searching for, and the words to convey everything you felt – and still feel – for the two of them, were one and the same. Because when the smoke cleared, and the funerals were over, and the slow healing had begun, the two other parts of your soul still lived and you could still launch yourself into their arms for a holding-on-to-dear-life hug.
Your first-born has his green, green eyes; your second born was gifted that red, red hair, already bushy like yours. So cliché, when you think about it. After all, that's what everyone assumed his-and-yours or yours-and-his would look like. And you've decided that your son and your daughter, and all the children you plan on having will know what that special spell is. Because he still attracts danger like honey attracts sugar ants, and you rather suspect that all your children will inherit that trait, regardless of who is their biological father. After all, how often had you two been with him, when danger was being attracted?
And when you find out you are carrying your third, the first thing you do is look down at your still-fairly flat stomach and pat the general area of the tiny being in there, and pass on the special spell, which was more powerful than a Dark Lord's most vile curses. You tell the child, still unable to hear you, so tiny you can only imagine you're feeling its movements, but that doesn't matter, because you will make sure the child hears it again and again, until it knows the spell by heart, because it needs to be passed on to the grandchildren you hope to live to see. And all you have to say is "I love you".