Chapter Text
Another day, another… day. Arthur McCross wasn’t getting much out of his time at Hogwarts anymore, not even education. He had never valued it much before, but ever since it had gone he wished it were back. The sense of normalcy would do everyone some good, but any hope of that had been thrown out the window since the start of the term. He knew it was best to keep himself out of trouble, so that’s what he did. Arthur wasn’t at much risk for getting into trouble, not since Snape and the Carrows took over, but his life was made all the more easy because he kept his head down and nose clean, if you could call condoning what was going on ‘keeping your nose clean.’
The Slytherin looked himself over in the bathroom mirror, running a hand through his wavy red hair. It was long, hanging just an inch or so above his shoulders with curly bangings constantly having to be trimmed or they threatened to obscure his vision. His dark brown eyes inspected the tiny bit of acne that appeared along his jaw, though he felt lucky that his dense freckles hid it quite well. He scrunched his mouth to one side to get a decent look, showing off the deep dimples that he had that ran all the way to his jaw. Resigned to just leave it, Art leaned back away from the mirror. He was fairly well built, especially his upper body and torso as he was one of two Slytherin beaters. If he had to describe his feelings with his overall appearance, he would say he was just on the pleased side of indifference. Giving himself one last glance, he turned to leave the Slytherin common room.
Making it down to breakfast, Art sat in his usual spot, with his usual people; Malfoy, Nott, Zabini, his good friend Fionn. Mostly, the conversation was kept fairly casual. There was no talk of Death Eater business that morning, the topic was nothing unusual anymore though. A fair few students had parents that followed He Who Shall Not Be Named, most of which were sitting at his table. A few of those around him had pledged their loyalties themselves. Art had never been made to himself, yet, anyway. His father was a Death Eater and the seventh year Slytherin was sure his time would come. He didn’t dwell on the thought much. His whole life was laid out for him and there was no point in fighting it.
As people started leaving the Great Hall for their classes, so too did Art. The first class of the day was Muggle Studies. It was never a particular interesting subject to him, and that was still true now. He knew the class took on quite a bit of a different tone from before, but he just didn’t care about status or muggles or anything of the sort. The only reason he tended to avoid voicing his opinions on the topic was because of his parents and their expectations of him. Art wasn’t the oldest of the four McCross children, but he might as well have been. His older brother, Iulien, was as good as dead to their parents. A blood traitor, they had called him once. So now, Art had the responsibility of being the oldest child, which meant carrying on the family name and pure bloodline. It was just the way things were for those with a name of any social and political standing.
Art sat down at his usual seat in the classroom. Alecto Carrow was already there, unsurprisingly, watching the students enter with a disconcerting smile. He was positive that she enjoyed her job very much . When it was time for class to begin, a handout copied from a book was given to each student containing an article titled “Muggles So Filthy They Bare No Soulmark.” It was nothing new. The only thing new was the reason why they were so dirty, which seemed to have a lot of creative answers. This time it was because they didn’t have soulmarks. Honestly he didn’t even think it was that big of a deal. He had a soulmark, but it wasn’t like it was going to make a difference either way. He was going to marry the daughter of some pureblood family in Romania that his mother knew, and that was that.
The parchment had barely made it to all the students’ hands when there was a snort from the other side of the room. Art looked over, past Fionn who was sitting beside him, to see that the laugh had come from Neville Longbottom. It hadn’t slipped the notice of Professor Carrow. As ridiculous as the article title may have been, this is what Art had meant about keeping his head down. It seemed to him as if the Gryffindors were just asking for their punishments. While perhaps somewhat undeserved, they had to know it was coming by doing things like that.
“Find something funny, boy?” Carrow asked, her eyes narrowing upon the Gryffindor.
“No ma’am,” he replied quickly, but there was an edge to his voice that did not go unnoticed. Art suspected though that it wouldn’t have made a difference even if it wasn’t there.
“Then you’ll have no trouble reading today’s topic in front of everyone,” Carrow smiled, her stained yellow teeth making a disturbing appearance. Longbottom looked down at the parchment in front of him, sighed, and got barely more than the first word out before being interrupted. “To the front now, Longbottom, don’t be shy.”
The Gryffindor sat for just a moment, seemingly contemplating if he was going to argue. Smartly deciding that it must not be worth it though, he got up, gripping the article tightly in one fist, as he stood in front of the seventh year Gryffindors and Slytherins. He started from the beginning, reading quickly and in an emotionless voice. It was at this point that Art had stopped paying attention, finding a small beetle crawling across the window sill to be more interesting. He only looked away when he heard their professor’s voice goading the student at the front.
“Go on,” she said.
“Mud-” the Gryffindor started but didn’t finish. He was clearly having a hard time saying the word ‘Mudblood’ and Art resisted the urge not to roll his eyes. It was just a word, afterall. Not one that he usually threw around, but still. He would have if it meant avoiding punishment.
"I won’t,” Longbottom said, his voice quiet but firm, and Carrow seemed to take too much pleasure in this.
“What a shame,” she said, though it was obvious she didn’t mean it. “Children must learn to do what they’re told.” And she raised her wand, pointing it at the Gryffindor. “ Cor Impetum, ” Professor Carrow hissed and bits of dark purple light went shooting out of the tip of her wand aimed at Longbottom’s chest.
A wretched gasping could be heard as the boy at the front of the classroom’s hand shot up towards his neck. Like the guy or not, it was an unsettling sight to see him wriggle with his red and gold tie in an attempt to get more air into his lungs. No one moved an inch to help him though as this sort of punishment was no longer a rare occurrence in the walls of Hogwarts, especially not in one of the Carrow’s classrooms. Anyone who so much as made a peep would suffer the same fate. Not doing anything made the torture end quicker.
Nearly everyone in the room flinched as a dull thud hit their ears; the sound of Longbottom falling to his knees, his tie free but clearly providing no relief. Many chose to look away, some of the Slytherins trying to appear indifferent and shame crossing the faces of the Gryffindors on the opposite side. Art didn’t look away though as he usually had in the face of others’ punishments. For some reason, he couldn’t as the blonde boy now clawed at his shirt. Surely he had suffered enough now for being able to say one word, right? But there was really no telling how long the punishment may go on for. The Carrows gave them out unmercilessly and unfairly. A small ping on the floor could be heard as one of the buttons flew from the top of Longbottom’s collared shirt and rolled away.
Those that still hadn’t looked away noticed what was clearly the Gryffindor’s exposed soulmark, now exposed by the slightly torn shirt. A gasp rippled through the classroom as the fist sized tattoo of what looked like a sleeping dragon went from a black outline to a brilliant red before their eyes. Anyone who wasn’t looking before certainly was now, and within moments the curse that Carrow was laying into the boy in front of her stopped.
Art felt like something in him was stirring awake as he watched Longbottom, eyes still closed, trying to catch his breath. The Slytherin’s fist closed into a tight ball on top of the desk in front of him, the sudden urge to go to the front of the room, to go to Longbottom, threatened his limbs. But he didn’t move, not one bit, as the other boy’s blue eyes finally opened. Art watched the events unfold, first as he noticed how the soulmark on his chest had changed, then as his eyes scanned the left side of the room for any sign of who his soulmate might be.
As the redhead felt prickles on the back of his neck, where his own soulmark was, he tried to convince himself to look away. He didn’t though. He didn’t as Longbottom got to his feet, hurriedly, and almost as an afterthought, threw a glance towards the other side of the room where the Slytherins sat.
“Well look at that!” Professor Carrow said, her voice sounding excited and cold both at once. “One of you unfortunate brats are stuck with this sad excuse of a wizard.” For one excruciating moment that felt both like a lifetime and entirely not enough time, Longbottom’s blue eyes locked with Art’s brown ones after just a second of searching. There was a tiny flicker of realization in his gaze among the horror present in his expression before he turned to leave. Art stared at the now empty doorway for a moment longer before dropping his gaze to the desk right in front of him, his stomach dropping low into his gut as his heart, at odds, felt lighter somehow. He wanted to bring as little attention to himself as he could in that moment- the last thing he needed was for people to realize that it had been him who completed that soulmark on the Gryffindor’s chest.
“I wonder who it was,” Fionn said, talking about the incident once they were away from the classroom. Art didn’t reply, his mind coming up blank with any response that wouldn’t make it seem as though he was the guilty party. His neck continued to itch and he brought a hand up under his russet locks to scratch at it. He knew it wouldn’t help, but there was nothing more he was willing to do for the nagging sensation that ran much deeper than just the surface of his skin. It felt almost as if his very being was in protest at the injustice of the soulmate bond not being completed. The more he thought of it, the more he was sure that was exactly what was happening.
“Everything alright mate?” Fionn had kept talking as Art followed along distractedly, just now noticing that he hadn’t been paying much attention.
“Yeah, fine,” the redhead assured, though unconvincingly. Luckily for him, his best friend dropped the subject as they headed off towards their next class.
That night before bed Art locked himself in the bathroom and pulled his pajama shirt off with his back facing the mirror. He twisted around to take a good look at the soulmark that took up a good portion of his upper back. Directly in the middle was a black seed and sprouting from it were thin vine tendrils that worked their way up his back and underneath his hairline, one even going so far as to loop over his right shoulder. He supposed it made sense that Longbottom was his soulmate as Herbology seemed to be the only thing the wizard had excelled at in his whole time at the school. Arthur thought back to the dark red dragon tattoo that sat curled up roughly over where the Gryffindor’s heart would be. He nearly wished he could get a better look at it, to see what kind of dragon it was, but then he stopped himself from going down that line of thinking, roughly pulled his shirt back over his head, and went to bed. Nothing of the sort would do him any good.