Chapter Text

Harry didn’t know what to expect when he and Cassioepia finally entered one of the towering glass buildings that were all stacked together like a row of houses, but the lush greenery that stretched ahead of him is a welcome surprise. It resembles the greenhouses from Hogwarts, with rows of vibrant and varied plants neatly kept in order.

Some of the plants are more…friendly than others and bend toward him as he passes them by. A particularly aggressive one snakes a tendril so close to him that Cassiopeia hits it with a stinging hex and it draws back, somehow conveying an air of offense.

“I told her that that one would be trouble,” she mutters as they hit the end of an aisle and make a turn onto another one. “But would she listen? Of course not.”

His question about who she’s talking about dies on his tongue when he spots the wix in front of them, for surely this is the ‘she’ in question. The wix is tall and wide, with auburn hair frantically trying to escape the bun that it’s been hemmed into. There’s a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and the knees of her wide-legged trousers are filthy. She’s also holding back a plant that appears to be attempting to strangle her.

“Oh, good,” she says briskly when she spots them.. “Come here and hold this.”

Harry slants a dubious glance over at Cassiopeia, but she only stares back obliquely and makes no move to help the other wix.

“Well?” the dirt-streaked wix asks impatiently. “I haven’t got all day, you know.”

"I don’t mean to be rude," Harry ventures, "but, who are you, exactly?"

She sighs. "Wonderful. Another Black that insists on societal niceties. Who has time for such things? That’s what I want to know!"

Disentangling a hand from the murderous plant, she leans forward and gives his hand a few perfunctory shakes. "I’m Callidora Black, herbologist. We’re related somehow. I didn’t bother asking. I don’t really care. Anyway, now that * that * is out of the way, hold this plant.” When he doesn’t immediately comply, she flaps an impatient hand at him. “It’s not going to kill you. It looks far worse than it is.”

Hesitantly, he drops to a knee and grabs hold of the plant’s trunk. The weird green branches flail around some more, a couple of them hitting his face and getting tangled in his hair.

“Callie,” Cassiopeia warns, but the herbologist ignores her in favour of busily pruning away with a fearsome set of clippers that drip a horrible smelling viscous liquid.

“There.” She sits back on her heels and blows a tendril of hair out of her face, satisfaction radiating from her. “That’s done, then. I’ve been trying to get it pruned for * ages. * ”

“Erm,” Harry says eloquently as he pulls at a few stray branches stuck in his hair.

Callidora reaches over and pulls him close by the shoulder, handling him so she could peer down at his scalp. “Damned annoying plant. If it weren’t so important for so many potions, I’d get rid of it altogether, but Pollux and Melania would never let me hear the end of it. Hold still and I’ll get ‘em out in a tick.” There’s a pause, and then Callidora goes, “Cass, gimme your wand for a sec.”

Cassiopeia’s voice grows louder as she approaches them both. “You lost yours again, didn’t you?”

“It’s not * lost * ,” Callidora retorts, though her hands are gentle as she continues to prod at Harry’s scalp. “It’s in the greenhouses.”

Cassiopeia makes a disbelieving noise even as she hands over her wand, a pale wood with a plain but lightly embellished handle. “Where, exactly?”

Callidora uses the wand with an air of familiarity, sending a couple of hexes at the branches. She makes a sound of triumph when they literally leap out of Harry’s hair. With two hard pats, she pushes him back and surveys him critically. “There you go. All set.”

“Thanks.” He gingerly explores his scalp but everything seems in place. “What was that?”

“Oh,” Callidora waves a hand, “just a variant of the Devil’s Snare. It’s harmless. Mostly.” She seems to realise what she’s said and then hurries along. “ * Anyway * , my wand’s somewhere, and now that I have yours, I’ll have mine back in just a mo’. * Accio * Callidora’s wand!”

A moment later a stick comes hurtling across the greenhouse. It almost hits Harry on the way and he ducks. Moments later it slaps into Callidora’s outstretched hand. Throwing Cassiopeia’s wand back at the wix, she grins. “There. All fixed. You can take your snobby yew wand back.”

Callidora is completely chaotic and completely uncaring. She’s totally unlike all the rest of the more formal and upright Blacks that Harry’s met so far. Harry loves it.

Cassiopeia, meanwhile, sighs and sticks her wand up her sleeve. “You’re going to drag me to an early grave, Callie.”

“But at least it’ll be because of something interesting, eh?” Callidora gets to her feet, brushing the dirt off her before belatedly realising she can just spell it off. A quick incantation later and she’s clean as a whistle.

“Wait,” Harry says belatedly. “How were you able to use Cassiopeia’s wand like that? I thought most people’s wands don’t work for others.”

Both wixen turn to face him, but it’s Callidora that answers. “We’re soulmates.”

“ * What?” * He glances between the two of them, wide-eyed, and blurts out, “Isn’t that incest? You know, like Walburga and Orion?” Sirius had once mentioned his parents’ relationship to Harry and declared that it showed just how mad the family was.

At his question, the two of them stare in shock and then simultaneously deny it.

“No, no,” Callidora waves off, looking vaguely ill.

“It’s not like that,” Cassiopeia chimes in almost on top of Callidora. “She and I are platonic soulmates. There’s not a single thing romantic about it.”

He is perplexed. “But I thought soulmates are only romantic.”

Callidora gives him a condescending look that makes him bristle. “How don’t you know that there are multiple types of soulmates? It’s common knowledge. ”

“Let’s just say I’ve led a sheltered life and that I don’t know anything.”

She appears sceptical still but moves on when Cassiopeia levels a look at her. “If you say so. There are romantic and platonic soulmates. Platonic soulmates can be split into subcategories by relationship, like familial or friendship or mentor and mentee. As you know, sometimes those relationships can shift to become romantic or are romantic from the start, although familial soulmates almost never do. If they do happen, the degree of relation is usually extremely distant. ” She grimaces. “Orion and Walburga are…an anomaly.”

Thinking about the degree of inbreeding the Purebloods do still makes Harry feel slightly nauseous, so he’s glad that she leaves it there and moves on.

“Romantic bonds are very common, although they’re not completely separate from platonic bonds,” Cassiopeia continues.

“It’s not like being soulmates requires a romantic connection,” Callidora interjects. Annoyance twists her lips as she adds, “although * some * people think otherwise. Idiots.”

While Cassiopeia makes a noise of agreement, Harry frowns. “Why would they think that?”

“Because of the mythology of it all!” Callidora huffs and folds her arms in front of her. “If Dumbledore and Grindelwald hadn’t died like they did, it wouldn’t have become such a big deal.”

“What do you mean, ‘died like they did’?” he asks.

“How you not know these things?” Callidora demands, then turns to Cassiopeia. “How doesn’t he know the most basic things? Was he found under a rock?”

Blandly, Cassiopeia replies, “He had alternative schooling.”

“Well, whoever was ‘schooling’ him,” she uses inverted quotes to make it clear what she thinks of calling it that, “needs to be sacked and then go through schooling themselves. He’s totally ignorant of basic concepts!”

“He is also right here,” Harry interrupts.

Callidora whirls to face him. “And you’re still ignorant.”

He doesn’t have much room to disagree with that.

“I’m sure we’ll address his knowledge—or lack thereof—in short order,” Cassiopeia reassures her soulmate. “For now, you can help by answering his question about Grindelwald and Dumbledore.”

“Right.” Callidora doesn’t really seem mollified by this but drops it for the moment. “Well, to put it simply, there was an enormous battle one day between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. It was sudden, completely unexpected. Of course we all knew that Grindelwald had his sights set on Britain, and we all knew that Dumbledore would be the most likely to defeat him due to Dumbledore’s sheer power and skill, but we didn’t know when. Dumbledore had been exceedingly reluctant to face Grindelwald in battle to the point that some had begun calling him cowardly.”

“But he wasn’t a coward,” Harry says as he manages to piece together Callidora’s absolutely barmy explanation. “He didn’t want to fight Grindelwald because they were soulmates.”

“Exactly,” Callidora nods approvingly. “For some reason, he ended up doing so anyway. Why he changed his mind, I’m not sure we’ll ever know. But change his mind he did, and Dumbledore took the fight to Grindelwald. They battled fiercely and violently, and in the end they both lay dead, though somehow neither had a mark on them to show.”

“That’s an…interesting account of events,” Harry says. “Very creative, though completely untrue, because I spent six years at Hogwarts with a very alive Dumbledore as my Headmaster.”

Callidora stares at him like he’s a dangerous plant she doesn’t know how to wrangle but will do her best with anyway. “Harry. Darling. I just * said * —”

Cassiopeia lays a hand on Callidora’s arm and the herbologist shuts up. With a pointed look at Harry that tells him to shut up and go along, she says, “Perhaps Harry got Dumbledore mixed up with someone else. It’s common knowledge that the two of them were soulmates and their last battle resulted in their deaths. Some scholars have theorized it’s because two soulmates aren’t meant to fight each other. It’s just not done. Why would you fight your soul?” She shrugs. “When they died the way they did — one soulmate martyring themselves to rid the world of the other and dying in their arms — it was considered terribly romantic.”

“I would describe it as horribly traumatic.” * Even though this entire discussion is patently absurd and untrue * , he doesn’t add. At his point, he has almost an academic interest in the conversation. He wants to see how far they’ll go.“What in the world about what you just said is romantic?”

“One soul divided into two, destined to be together but fated to be apart.” Callidora spreads her hands. “What’s not romantic about that?”

Cassiopeia is far more pragmatic about the matter and agrees. “I honestly don’t think it’s about them. It’s about the power that bonds give you.”

Callidora rolls her eyes. “Of course you’d say something like that. You don’t have a single romantic bone in your body.”

Cassiopeia sniffs. “As if that’s a problem. As I was saying, soulmates that are bonded experience an increase in power dependent upon how bonded they are.”

“You mean if they’re married or not?” Harry clarifies.

“I suppose you could use that language,” Cassiopeia allows. “There are three stages of bonding regardless of whether you’re romantically or platonically bonded. There’s the initial recognition, where you formally recognize who your mate is, a half-bond—I suppose you could equate it to an engagement, though it’s not quite exactly the same—and a full bond.”

When Callidora sees Harry’s uncomprehending expression, she rolls her eyes. “Cassiopeia’s too academic. Look, Harry. It’s like this. For a long time, people look for their soulmates. Most people don’t know unless they’re lucky enough to get a name as their Mark. But when they do find them or think they’ve found them, they’ll touch Marks. If it turns out that they are mates, the Marks will change somehow. Usually it’s a colour change. After that, it’s up to the mates to decide how far they want to bond.”

“But wouldn’t everyone want to bond?”

“You’d think so, yes, but that’s not the case. As Cass said,” Callidora tilts her head in Cassiopeia’s direction, “it’s about power. If you half-bond, both the mates will experience an increase in power. A full bond will of course have a higher level of power increase—some say it’s four fold while half bonds are only twofold. But for platonic mates, no matter if they half bond or full bond, the greatest increase possible is only twofold.”

“So romantic soulmates who fully bond would experience the greatest increase in power,” Harry says slowly as he thinks through it.

“Right,” Callidora nods. “A platonic pair that fully bonds would still gain power but not as much as a romantic pair that does the same.”

“Why do only the romantic people get the most power? That’s really unfair.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Callidora replies darkly, shoving a slightly crumpled sunhat on her head. “But at least we don’t have to deal with the other side effects of having a full bond if we decide not to go through with it. Half-bonded pairs might not get the double boost, but at least we don’t die if the other does.”

“Wait.” He looks between the two of them. “Fully bonded romantic pairs * die * ?”

“That’s what a lot of people think happened to Dumbledore and Grindelwald,” Cassiopeia says. “We don’t know if they ever fully bonded or not. It wasn’t registered if they did. But to answer your question — yes. Once a pair is fully bonded, if one dies, then the other does. Perhaps not immediately, but certainly within the next day or two.”

He’s aghast. “But why?”

“Harry.” Callidora looks at him like he’s stupid. “They’re soulmates. Once a soul is bonded to another, they’re no longer two souls. They’re one. And a soul doesn’t want to live a half life, does it.”

He can’t even imagine it. What would it be like knowing that half your soul is out there running around, that you could die at any moment? “That sounds horrible.”

“It’s certainly a weakness,” Cassiopeia agrees. “Some decide it’s worth it. That’s why fully bonded romantic pairs are considered the height of romance. You love your mate enough to die with them at any time.”

“Well, I’ve had too many people die for me already, thanks.” He withholds a shiver.

“You say that now, but wait until you find your mate. That initial moment, when you recognize each other…” Callidora’s voice gets a little dreamy and her eyes far away. “It’s like nothing else. For a moment, it’s like you have that full bond. You feel their feelings, you feel that connection…it’s like they’re inside you and you’re inside them.”

It sounds like some kind of advanced Legilimency except way worse. He remembers the pain from when Snape and then the Unspeakable did it, and he can’t imagine anything he’d like less.

“Right. Yeah, I think I’ll pass.”

Callidora laughs and claps him on the shoulder. “I don’t think you can pass on soulmates. Everyone’s got one.”

He thinks about how he doesn’t have a mark and hopes that Callidora’s wrong.

“Anyway,” Callidora continues briskly, “that’s enough of that. Come and help me with this plant.” She points at one that has some kind of weird pink haze around it and purple berries that tremble on the stem.

“Uh,” Harry tries to think of a way out before casting a pleading look Cassiopeia’s way, “I’m not too good at plants. Honest.”

Thankfully, Cassiopeia takes mercy on him. “Why don’t you go take a look around? There are seven greenhouses, and they’re all linked. They’re all safe—Callie, the dangerous plants * are * warded, aren’t they?”

Callidora remains silent until Cassiopeia judgmentally stares down her nose at the auburn-haired wix. With a vaguely guilty expression, Callidora tells him, “Maybe don’t go into the fourth one.”

“Callie!”

“Oh, shut up.” Callidora abandons any pretense at guilt and rolls her eyes. “Nobody else goes into them except me and one other person, and they’re not here right now.”

Cassiopeia’s brows fly up. She darts a quick look Harry’s way and steps closer to Callidora before dropping her voice. “He’s not? When did you last see him?”

Callidora grabs up her sunhat and mashes it between her hands unhappily. “Not for a couple days. Bet he’s out somewhere licking his wounds. You heard what Arcturus said to him.” She shakes her head. “I know Arcturus was stressed, but he was brutal to the boy.”

• “ * What?” Cassiopeia asks, surprised. “No, I didn’t hear anything. What are you talking about?”

“He came and told me himself what happened. He was right cut up about everything, understandably so. He said—“ She stops mid-sentence before glancing Harry’s way, unwilling to go further in front of him.

Cassiopeia follows her glances and grimaces. “I’m sorry, Harry, but this is a matter of privacy. Why don’t you go wander around, hm?”

Fine by him. He’s curious enough to want to know who they’re discussing, but this is the perfect opportunity to get away with none the wiser. It’ll take them time to even realise he’s gone. “No problem.”

A shield encases the two Wix a moment later. Harry only stays long enough to see Callidora tell Cassiopeia something that makes the dark-haired Wix flush with fury and snap something back that looked an awful like, * he said what? *

Casually, Harry strolls away like he has all the time in the world, his hands in his trouser pockets. He stops and examines a couple of plants to make it look like he’s simply meandering, though he doesn’t dare touch them or sniff any flowers. He’s already been attacked by a plant once today, thanks.

As soon as he turns the corner at the end of the aisle, he bolts for the next greenhouse. It’s a mad rush to the end of the long glass building, but he spies the door soon enough and wrenches it open.

It’s more of the same — plants as far as the eye can see — but he thinks he sees a door halfway down the long glass wall. The humid air sticks to his skin and clothes as he hurries down the aisle, and his palm is sweaty from it as he tries the handle.

It turns. With a push, it opens and he’s * out * . Out of the castle, out of the greenhouses, and, he hopes, out of the wards.

Just to make sure, he runs into the forest as far as he dares, hoping they still haven’t realised he’s gone. Bush and bramble tear at his clothes and skin, leaving raised marks and twigs and leaves in their wake, but he doesn’t care. He just has to get far enough.

Eventually his body can’t take it any more. He’s still weak from his time at the Ministry, despite being under Narcissa’s care. It strikes him once again that his condition truly must have been dire if he still feels winded and out of breath after such a short run.

But he’ll have to make do. He won’t have this chance again.

Taking a deep breath, he gathers his strength, turns on his heel, and apparates away.