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Ginny came home crying in December. It wasn’t just a little crying, Ginny was inconsolable over the appearance of her soul mark.
It seemed to Molly that all of her children were getting their soul marks, even Charlie who had just revealed that his soul mark matched that of internationally acclaimed wizard-rock star Kirley Duke. Molly approved of this simply because it would mean that Molly and her best friend, Kirley’s birth mother, would be loosely related.
Molly remembered the day Percy’s girlfriend had gotten a soul mark that matched her best friend. Percy and Penelope continued to date even after they knew she’d gotten the mark, still choosing to pursue a love that came with no strings attached—a love they chose—but their picking of one another couldn’t overcome the pull Penelope Clearwater had towards someone who could not only match her loquacious wit, but her passion too. So, Percy came home distraught about how Penelope had run off with the Gryffindor a chaser named Angelina. Fred, on the other hand, came home the same holiday celebrating that his girlfriend of two years had finally found someone who makes his best friend (Angelina, of course!) sound like she’s taking a constant stream of giggle water.
It took hours of coaxing for Molly to get anything but an emotional expression out of her daughter. Between the blubbering sobs about Ron liking his best friend and Ginny expressing her fear of never getting to be with her soulmate, it was revealed that Ginny had discovered that she now had a gentle rose on the innermost corner of her left wrist, a rose that matched someone Ginny knew.
While sad for a soul mark-less Percy and ecstatic for Charlie, it was different with Ginny; Molly wished there was something comforting that could be said, but Ginny was right: there was never a guarantee that soulmates would be together—there were immeasurable factors that went into determining a partner, and the soul mark was only one of them. The rest of a relationship was up to whether the soulmates were willing to live their lives alongside one another.
So, tonight, Molly sat silently next to her youngest child trying to console her and make sense of the frustration that seemed to infiltrate the whole house. For Molly, the difficulty was that Ginny’s worries didn’t come out in comprehensible sentences. Instead, they were fragments of sobs.
“—doesn’t even know I exist—always with Ron—could never love me—what if—”
Molly was certain that Harry had to be it—her daughter had always been drawn to the Chosen One. While Harry was wonderful, with Molly’s soul mark experience, she truly prayed that her daughter had not matched with the boy Molly’d grown to call her son. It wasn’t that he was not a good match, but more that Molly understood the realties of loving someone who was destined to face war with the fierce force of a dragon. She understood the pain that would feel like an encapsulation within fiendfire.
“Ginny dear, how do you know that Harry isn’t your soulmate. Have you asked? Are you sure?”
Ginny looked up at Molly, clearly confused by her mother’s comment on Harry. The young woman scoffed and wiped a stream of water from her constellation-filled cheeks. Molly wasn’t sure what she had said wrong, but Ginny was clearly vexed.
“Mum,” Ginny finally managed, sniffing in a drip of tears from her nose. Molly fought back the urge to conjure a tissue into the air when she watched her daughter wipe snot on the back of her jumper sleeve—a mother’s pet-peeve. “I saw hers. I saw it when she was revising with Harry and Ron. She didn’t even look at me.”
Molly sighed, preparing herself to explain more, but Ron barged in with his hand gripping the sleeve of his newly stained jumper, seemingly in a rage.
“Ginny—I need to ask you about Laven—”
Both of his eyes went from the floor, to his mother, and then to the mark his sister was holding out to show Molly. Molly couldn’t tell if there was relief in his eyes or worry, but before she could interfere, Ron started speaking quickly, nearly matching the pace of a quick quotes quill during an quidditch press conference.
“Ginny, Hermione—” He started, not pausing before he changed his own thoughts. Molly couldn’t keep up. “Hermione said she’s been looking around and she was afraid it was Draco as much as he’s been watching us. Followed us to quidditch matches and eyeing us in potions. Malfoy keeps watching her and we kept trying to figure out who—if there were—but it’s you and we can’t—there’s—oh, Merlin, she’s going to be so grateful. You should owl her and—”
Ginny sat up in her bed during this exchange and shook her head, cutting her brother off. Molly wasn’t sure if she herself should cut in herself, but her instincts told her to wait and see what they decided together. This was something they may need to talk through without the guidance of a meddling mother.
“Ron, I can’t tell her in an owl, especially knowing that—but maybe I should? I can’t imagine spending a whole holiday wondering if you were destined to be with that twat Malfoy.”
Molly didn’t much like to think of her children speaking ill of other people—she discouraged it as much as possible, even when she found kindness difficult—but there was a pride that swelled in her when Ginny found Malfoy’s name so venomously in her mouth.
Ron waved his hands at his sister.
“Invite her to come here after Christmas. She can come on Boxing Day and go to London with us,” he explained. “Get her something nice to show her, it’ll be sweet. She’s been eying a ring in Hogsmeade. You should get her one like it, I can show you!”
Molly had no idea where the sudden whir of romance had come from in Ron, but she found the sentiment sweet and had a flutter of pride—he took after his father in this sense. Ron’s face settled again and then gripped his own sleeve and pulled it down over the palm of his own hand. It seemed he was waiting on his mother to walk out.
“Harry’s unloading his trunk in my room,” Ron said to his Molly. His comment was followed by an awkward cough. “I couldn’t find the sheets I think the ghoul stole them."
“I’ll get him some, and then I’ll go make some tea,” Molly said quietly to her children when she stood from Ginny’s bed. Molly tucked Ginny’s hair back into place, kissed her forehead, and closed the door behind her. There was a part of her that wanted to stay and listen and hear what they had to say about Ginny’s soul mark, but she was drawn away by the sound of something falling on the floor below her. Molly grabbed some sheets, took them to Ron’s room, and stopped by Fred and George’s room to be sure they weren’t making a mess.
Before she could scold the twins for the bubbling cauldron in the middle of their floor, she was pulled away by the sound teacups falling in the kitchen.
She floated down the stairs, and while she walked Molly touched the soul mark on her own forearm, tracing the darkening ghosts of ravens carefully on her skin.
“Molly Duck, where do you keep the—“
Molly’s memories were disturbed by her husband’s sweet smile, tousled hair, and a mess of tea leaves on spread across the table. She noted that he glanced over the glasses that were sliding down his nose and looked directly at her arm as she entered their quaint and humble kitchen. He pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and squinted as though he were seeking clarity or permission to see into her mind.
“I take it the fuss is that she’s gotten hers and that’s what’s made her so cross,” Arthur asked Molly. There was always a bit of a strange ambiance in the home when one of the children got their’s, especially since Molly and Arthur hadn’t married their soulmates.
“I think Ron’s gotten his too,” Molly sighed. Neither of them were ready for this to be happening to the two youngest. She tapped her wand on the table and watched the crushed tea leaves skate across the wood into a pile at the end and land next to a copy of the Daily Prophet. “Ginny’s matches Hermione, which means Ron’s got someone else. I just hope that it’s someone—”
“Ron? He didn’t say—”
“He doesn’t have to. He’s been wearing long sleeves all the time,” Molly noted. “Got them in the butter this morning and wouldn’t even roll them up. You can’t hide them for long, can you?”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed as though he were thinking about something quite difficult, as often was the case with soul marks. She noted that the sunflower-shaped soul mark on Arthur’s clavicle had faded similarly to how hers had years before, as they did when they weren’t in proximity to their matches. Arthur’s soulmate, Emily Jones, had joined the First Order with Molly’s brother. When Emily met her end, Molly had already ended her relationship with Alastor Moody, leaving Molly and Bill alone and Arthur soulmate-less. Since the Order had been reinstated and Alastor Moody had been spending more time around the family, hers had begun to darken again and it made Arthur nervous. He didn’t have to tell her, she’d loved him long enough to know, but that wasn’t a conversation either of them were ready to breech.
There was a vibrato of silence between them singing that uncomfortable song about the obvious thoughts both of them were having about Alastor. Molly glanced away from her husband, breaking eye contact and noting that Oliver Wood’s new soul match had been recently hospitalized in October due to a brutal attack at Hogwarts. Katie Bell and Oliver Wood were pictured as a sports headline with his arm around her making a statement that he expected Hogwarts to find whoever had hurt her. Molly noted the small golden snitch mark that both were doting on their arms, finding it sweet that the two of them were in love with each other as much as they were with quidditch.
Arthur finally broke their silence, drawing her eyes from the pop-culture news and leading her with more concerns about the safety of Hogwarts.
“—whoever it is, whatever happens, Ron will be fine. We were. Are?”
Perhaps he was looking for validation that her thoughts on soul marks were a reconsideration of her decision to leave fate behind and choose a safe love.
“Yes, we are fine,” she concurred. “And Ron will be too.”
Molly nodded, not fully believing her own words. She adored and loved her husband, marrying him was the best decision she’d ever made for herself and Bill, but no matter how much she wanted to fight it, there was a barrier between them when Alastor was involved—there always was when someone loved the soulmate who left them behind.
Later that night when everyone had filed into The Burrow for Christmas Eve dinner, Molly started rearranging the spaces so everyone had somewhere to sleep.
"Fred, George, I'm sorry, dears, but Remus and Tonks are arriving tonight, so Bill will have to squeeze in with you two... Then, as Charlie is at the Duke’s, that just leaves Harry and Ron in the attic, and if Fleur shares with Ginny... everyone should be comfortable. Well, they'll have a bed, anyway.”
“But mum, Bill says he’s staying with Fleur,” George commented. “He’s already taken Percy’s old room to be with his soulmate.”
Molly winced at the idea of Percy missing Christmas, but ignored that thought and raised an eyebrow. She turned to look at the twins as though she were asking for more clarification.
“You didn’t know? They’re not just dating anymore, Delacour and Bill both got some wave on their ribs or whatever. I don’t want to think about how they figured out they matched,” Fred noted with a strong roll of his eyes. “And he said she’s going with us into London on Boxing Day.”
Ron looked up from opening the present Lavender had sent him, letting the my sweetheart necklace dangle in front of him and groaned.
“This soulmate shit is too much,” he complained, shooting Harry a look of desperation. “Can’t we just remove expectations from people?”
Harry nodded in agreement, but didn’t get a chance to respond as he yelped and threw his gift across the room. On the floor was a parcel of maggots signed by Kreacher.
—
Winter melted and the flowers bloomed in the bursts of sun.
The Easter Holidays came quickly and the entire first night home Ron complained of how annoying Goyle had been in potions. It seemed that Malfoy had left his initial potions partner, and Gregory Goyle ended up working at the station behind Ron—alongside Blaise Zabini.
Ron and Harry spent an evening playing chess and complaining about how much Blaise was moaning to Goyle about Theodore’s Easter plans while they were putting ginger root into a potion. Ron then spend twenty minutes theorizing about how Zabini would probably soul match with Nott and Crabbe and Goyle were thick enough to have been made for each other, too. From the sounds that carried from the sitting room into the kitchen, Ron loathed everything about Goyle. It seemed to be a family trait—Molly had once had to partner with Goyle’s mother, Gwen, in potions and dealt with the woman feeding answers to her twin brother Rodolphus.
Later in listening to her son’s conversation, Molly learned that Ron’s robes had been caught on fire in potions because Harry had bumped Ron’s sleeve into the flames trying to check Malfoy for a dark mark—an insane task in Molly’s opinion. Molly overheard Ron complain that Harry hadn’t found any signs of dark magic from Draco, but there was a weird swirl on Malfoy’s knee—something Harry only found out snooping around the Quidditch lockers after a game.
Because Ron was the tallest, and Bill and Charlie’s old robes were too tattered to repair, Molly had to go into London to pick up some new ones before he returned after the holiday.
Madam Malkin’s was empty but for a singular boy standing on a fitting platform wearing emerald green accented robes. He had broad shoulders and his voice was deeper than Molly had expected; he sounded more like a man than a boy. The voice felt familiar, like somewhere in his lineage was someone Molly’s mind was familiar with.
“Mum, these aren’t right, they’re too short,” the young man said. Without seeing his face, Molly could place the accent and speech pattern as a Lestrange, or at least someone who had spent time with them. This guest was Old Money.
“Ms. Goyle,” Madam Malkin’s sighed. “I’ve sew them exactly where he’s asked. I’m not sure what else I can—”
Molly’s eyes trailed to an old school-mate—Gwendolyn Lestrange Goyle, the mother of who Molly would assume to be Gregory Goyle. All Molly knew about him was what Ron told her—and Molly didn’t like him.
“My son says they’re wrong, so you need to fix them,” Gwendolyn snapped. “Do your job or we’ll take them into Paris."
“Pardon,” Molly interrupted, hoping to both save Madam Malkins from the abuse and to get out of the establishment before all hell broke loose. “I just need to look through your second hand robes. I’ll do the tailoring myself, but we just need some Gryffindor robes.”
The boy turned his head around towards Molly as she walked by and made a cold comment about Weasleys needing to buy from the rubbish bin. When Molly’s eyes looked over at him she refused to make eye contact. Instead, she looked in the mirror and glanced over the large, terrorizing figure. Molly made note that he had excellent posture and carried himself with confidence. He could have also had soft eyes if he weren’t so seemingly focused and determined to be rigid. Molly’s eyes were then drawn to Gwendolyn adjusting Gregory’s robes and beckoning Madam Malkin back over with shrill demand.
In the chaos of the swishing robes, Molly caught a glimpse of the swirl on Gregory’s knee. Molly’s mind transported back to the conversation Ron had with Harry earlier that morning regarding the state of Draco Malfoy’s knee after quidditch. She chuckled to herself and pulled a robe from the shelf, paid, and went home pleased with her newfound knowledge.