Work Text:
I wish I were a girl.
Tamara looked at the words on her wrist. She'd seen them as long as she could remember. Not always the same words, but always wishes, from someone like her. Someone who lived with people who didn't like her. Someone who didn't always have enough to eat or nice clothes to wear. Someone who had mean wishes sometimes. Often they were about their guardians or their cousin and about terrible things that she wished would happen to her.
Tamara had always thought it was a girl until now.
Why wouldn't it be, when the wisher was so much like herself?
She knew a few things absolutely about her wishes. One was that nobody else could see them. Not the other foster kids. Not Mrs Cole. Not her teachers. Just Tamara.
The second was that they were written by another child.
I wish I didn't have to act stupid in class
I wish I were already eighteen and could leave forever.
The third was that they were written by someone who had their own wishes.
I wish I knew who wrote these wishes on me.
I wish I could find wishmate and run away with them.
Finally, Tamara knew that no one else in her group home had them. She'd spied on everyone to be sure. The wishes made her special. She lay in her bunk bed at night stroking the words, wondering if her wishmate knew her own wishes.
I wish I were a girl.
Tamara didn't know what to think of this. Her wishmate was a boy? She'd always pictured her wishmate as someone like herself. A scrappy, underfed girl with her hair pulled back into a ponytail because no one would plait it for her. Ill-fitting school uniforms because they were bought used.
But now she had to adjust that picture and make it a boy. Someone like Billy Shipton? Gross… no. Maybe he was someone more like Ian Benson, Amy's older brother who was going to age out soon. He had sharp eyes, and came in after curfew sometimes smelling of cigarettes. Tamara's wishmate was just as cruel as Ian, but more clever, she was sure.
I wish guardian would bleed from her eyeballs.
I wish aunt's dog would attack cousin so that it would be put down.
I wish mean girl would get mud all over her lavender dress.
The wishes never had identifying information. But Tamara had been keeping track. There was never a mother or father, brother or sister. But there was a male and female guardian, a male cousin, an aunt, neighbours and classmates. No friends. No pets.
She had to invent her own cypher to keep a notebook full of wishes. But it was worth it to keep it safe from anyone else.
Tamara hadn't figured out how to find her wishmate when a visitor came who changed everything.
Tamara was a witch.
Wishmates were called soulmates.
Tamara might meet her soulmate at Hogwarts, the school for witches and wizards.
There was a ritual she would learn to perform as a 7th year student to commune with her soulmate, if she hadn't found him by then.
Tamara had no intention of waiting until 7th year.
The next day, Tamara saw the wish that made her nearly jump for joy.
I wish I meet my soulmate this year at magic school.
It was the first time her wishmate had used the term 'soulmate'. Apparently the school wouldn't be identified, but if Professor McGonagall had taken their invitations to them both on the same day, then that would explain it.
Two weeks after learning she was a witch, Tamara met witches and wizards her age. They met in a grimy pub in London, and Professor McGonagall reminded them that sharing the information on their soulmark was Taboo.
"The most important thing to understand about your soulmarks is that they are not to be shared with anyone. Not your parents or guardians, not your siblings, not your classmates, not your teachers, no one. Just as you would not want your thoughts shared with the world, you do not share your soulmate's thoughts. That means no reading them aloud to try and find your soulmate. Magic will lead you to them naturally."
Tamara listened. And found loopholes. Once Professor McGonagall set them down in a booth so she could go to the bank to withdraw the fund for scholarship students, Tamara looked around at the other muggleborns in orientation. "Who wants to try to figure out if any of us are soulmates?" she said conspiratorially.
"We can't! It's a Taboo!" a frizzy haired witch said.
"No, it's not taboo to try to find out. It's taboo to reveal what's on our arm." Tamara lifted her arm, covered now with a woven band. It was the first thing from the magical world any of them had been given, and they would all learn to weave their own in first year. "I'm not revealing anything about my soulmate. But I can reveal things about myself. That's not against the rules. It's just being friendly." She gave a sharp smile. "For example, my name is Tamara Riddle I've been in foster care since I was young. I don't know my father, and my mum can't take care of me. If I have any brothers or sisters, I wouldn't know. I used to wish my father would show up, but that was a long time ago. I know now he'd just be a deadbeat." Tamara had once been ashamed of being a foster kid, until she learned others could weaponise that shame against her unless she claimed it first.
She saw the moment the light dawned on the others.
"I'm Hermione Granger. I'm an only child and my parents are dentists," the girl said. "I sometimes wish I had a normal name, not one from Shakespeare. It's HerMY-Own-EE, not HER-me-own."
The Eton kid spoke up. "I'm Justin Finch-Fletchley. I have two half sisters that are much older than me. My Mum is in parliament. My Dad runs a major charity. I sometimes wish that my family had time for me."
There was one boy who had been stealing looks at Tamara the whole time, and she knew even before he spoke, that he was the one. "I'm Harry Potter. My parents died in a car accident when I was a baby. I was raised with my aunt and uncle and my cousin Dudley. I used to wish my parents were alive, but I think what I wished for most was probably that I'd one day meet the person who sent me wishes, and that they'd like me."
It wasn't enough to break the taboo over, but the two of them stuck together as they did their shopping, occasionally sharing a wish of their own.
"I wish we'll be in the same house," Harry said to Tamara before they got on their separate buses home.
"I wish that too."
Tamara felt her wrist tingle, knowing the wish had just changed, but she didn't look until her bus pulled away. Then she lifted her wristwrap and peered at the words.
I wish she is my soulmate.
Then there was another tingle, and the words shifted.
I wish she won't hate me for being girly.
Tamara put the wrap down and decided that she would find out if there was a magical way to make Harry into a girl. And if there wasn't already, then she would invent one. And she would never ever hate Harry for that.
Harry got back to Privet Drive and into the second bedroom. He might have met his wishmate - soulmate - today, but she was so pretty and so smart and why would she want anything to do with him after she figured out what a freak he was?
He felt the message on his wrist change, and he looked at his wrist.
I wish we can find a secret room at Hogwarts where he can try on my dresses.
Harry gasped. She knew!