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To some people, getting their marks was a huge deal.
Ron got his just before the end of Ginny's second year, and he made a huge fuss about it. Every single person in the Weasley household that first week of the holidays had the experience of Ron approaching them, tugging down the neckline on his robes as far as it would go - “Careful, dear, you'll stretch it!” - and demanding their opinion on what it meant.
Admittedly, the ghostly white explosion of sparks which had appeared on Ron's chest out of nowhere wasn't a typical design – Ginny was all too happy to join Fred and George in teasing that perhaps it wasn't a mark at all, but evidence that Ron had electrocuted himself on one of their father's Muggle gadgets. That made him sulky, and eventually shy, and he took to wearing outfits with high necklines, hiding his mark from view like so many people chose to until they'd found the person it was meant for.
All of which made it very hard for Ginny to keep a straight face when Hermione, sleeping over before the Triwizard Tournament, had gigglingly shown off the matching design she bore in between her shoulder blades.
Ginny had kept it a secret, partly because it wasn't her secret to tell and partly because she thought it would be more fun to watch them figure it out on their own. They had done so soon enough, after a Hungarian Horntail had torn Harry's shirt to shreds, revealing the third of the set, emblazoned on his right arm. There had been a lot of hugging and crying after that, because making a fuss was what you did when you found your soulmate, apparently. Even if, like Harry, you had three marks – the spark for Ron and Hermione, a dragon on his left arm which he still hadn't figured out, and, of course, that famous lightning bolt, linking him forever to You-Know-Who.
That was the thing about marks. Everyone thought they knew what their mark meant, but it wasn't that simple. A mark showed two people who were supposed to be in each others lives. That didn't mean they would be, as Harry had told her one frosty night in her fifth year, when, tired and maybe a little tipsy on smuggled Butterbeer, they'd talked about what it was like to have a mark you didn't understand.
“Maybe I should do an exposé – I reckon the Daily Prophet would enjoy that,” Harry had grumbled. “The search for the mystery dragon. At least then I'd get to meet them, before...”
Ginny bit her lip, and looked away. The future was looming over them all, and there wasn't a lot of time left to go looking for love.
“But that kind of seems like missing the point,” he continued. “It's, you know – personal. I don't know how you're so open about yours.”
Ginny chuckled. “Too much work trying to hide it.”
She looked down at her mark, the curved silhouette of a bird, simple and black on the inside of her wrist. It had appeared one dinnertime in her third year, and she hadn't even noticed it until Colin had pointed it out to her. Faced with the prospect of a lifetime of long sleeves and chunky bracelets, she had opted not to care.
Harry gave her a dark look. “There are worse places.”
True. A wrist was much better than the forehead. She shrugged.
“Never saw the point,” she said. “And, well… after last year…”
The Gryffindor team's string of successes recently had earned them all a few fans, and Ginny's very obvious mark had become something of an emblem. They drew it on signs or painted it on their faces, and even those who weren't in her fanclub had started calling her The Swift.
“I guess I kind of missed my chance,” Ginny concluded. “But I don't really know what all the fuss is about, anyway.”
Harry smiled, with that slightly dreamy look in his eyes that meant he was thinking about Ron and Hermione.
“Someday -” he began.
Ginny thumped him, and he broke off laughing.
“Honestly,” she said, taking a swig of her Butterbeer. “You three are sickening.”
A handful of weeks after that evening, in the quiet post-Christmas days when homework had returned but no-one had quite worked up the will to work properly again, Ginny met Luna for a half-hearted study date in the near-deserted library.
As soon as Ginny sat down, she saw it. It was hard to miss.
“Not you too!” she protested.
Luna was wearing a necklace in the shape of Ginny's mark. Not a small, unobtrusive thing either – no, this being Luna, the charm was about the size of Ginny's fist, and painted in a gaudy red-orange that approximated the colour of her hair.
“What?”
Luna's head snapped up suddenly. She clearly hadn't heard Ginny approach.
“Oh, hello.” Luna smiled. “Was it me you were yelling about?”
Ginny hesitated.
“Uh, no,” she said after a moment. “It was something else entirely. C'mon, we'd better get started on this essay for Flitwick...”
It was no use though. Ginny's concentration was absolutely ruined. Her eyes kept darting back to the necklace every other minute, and she barely heard a word Luna was saying.
Why even make such a thing? Because surely it was hand-made, as so many of Luna's odd accessories were. But why would a Ravenclaw – even one who was an ardent supporter of Gryffindor in all their other matches – make a necklace to show support for a Gryffindor chaser?
Well, it was Luna. And that was the problem, wasn't it? Because Luna might not do what made sense to everyone else – she might even take Ginny by surprise on a weekly basis – but she didn't treat Ginny like a stranger. She didn't get to admire Ginny from afar and emblazon herself with Ginny's mark like it didn't mean anything to her.
The two of them had been friends for years. They'd half-known each other in childhood, in that my-dad's-aunt-was-your-mum's-second-cousin kind of way that all pureblood kids were aware of each other, but it was in their second year that they'd found each other. Luna had been the one to make Ginny smile on the days when she thought she could never show her face in the hallways again. Ginny had earned her first ever detention by hexing a boy who had muttered 'freak' behind Luna's back. Last year the two of them had trained together, fought together and bled together. Luna had saved Ginny's life.
All that meant something.
It meant something.
That was the thing, Ginny realised. When a couple of giggling second-years drew her mark on their robes and waved at her from the stands, it was about her. They might as well have called out her name, because all they hoped to do was catch her attention, advertise their support of Ginny Weasley, The Gryffindor Swift. But Luna…
When Luna wore Ginny's mark, it wasn't a shout – it was a whisper in her ear, a murmur meant for her alone. When Luna wore Ginny's mark, it felt like she was making it her own, and claiming a part of Ginny with it. And that -
A shiver ran down Ginny's spine, and she could hear herself breathing faster as the warmth rose in her cheeks. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant sensation.
All of a sudden, Luna's smile looked more like a smirk. Perhaps it was all in Ginny's imagination, but that look lit a fire in the pit of Ginny's stomach, and she knew she didn't care. She wanted to take the risk. She wanted to push this, as far as it could go.
“Luna,” she said. “Is that a new necklace?”
Luna glanced down, as though she'd forgotten she was wearing it. When she saw it, she smiled.
“Yes, it was a Christmas present to myself,” she said. “I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It took such a long time to carve.”
“Really?” Ginny asked. “When did you start working on it?”
“Oh, over the summer sometime.”
Ginny was pretty sure Luna was teasing her.
“It's my mark,” she said, deciding to be direct.
“Yes, it is.”
Luna was definitely teasing her.
Ginny could feel her heart pounding in her throat as she opened her mouth and finally asked the question that was burning inside of her.
“…Luna. Do you have a mark?”
Luna tilted her head to the side, considering. “I thought you might have seen it before.”
“No,” Ginny said. “No, I haven't.”
“Oh. Well…”
Luna turned slightly in her chair, pulling her hair to one side to expose her neck. Right at the nape was her mark, a stark black shape about the size of Ginny's thumbnail. The shape of a swift.
Ginny reached out without even thinking, brushing her fingertips over the mark. It was silly she knew, but she could have sworn she felt a spark as they touched.
Luna shuddered under her hand.
“I -”
Ginny drew back her hand. A roaring sound filled her ears.
She didn't want to pull back. She didn't want to let go, not now, not ever. She wanted to hold Luna close and say “We have found each other and we will never again be apart,” and then kiss her until they were both gasping for breath. That was how the fairytale went, wasn't it? The marks were revealed, and the two of you lived happily ever after.
But it had been many years since Ginny believed in fairytales.
The marks meant two people were meant to be in each other's lives. Beyond that, you didn't know what it meant. There were a lot of kinds of love – and Luna loved Ginny, Ginny knew that, she had said so in every action and every word since their second year. But Luna had known their marks matched for months, perhaps years – andnever once had she shown any indication of wanting anything other than friendship.
Perhaps that was what the marks meant, for them. Ginny aching to touch, but never being able to. She didn't care – she would take it. She didn't need a mark to know that she would be Luna's friend for as long as they lived.
Next to that, kissing almost didn't matter.
Almost.
“Sorry,” Ginny said. “I didn't mean to -”
Luna let her hair drop, covering the mark once more. She turned back to Ginny with a grim expression on her face.
“You hadn't seen it before?” she asked. “I thought that since you never asked…”
“I don't, as a rule.” Ginny said.
“Ah, I see.”
There was an achingly long moment of silence between them. For a moment, Ginny thought: Isn't this when the crying and hugging is meant to happen?
Then Luna cocked her head to one side, and said: “I hope this is going to be enough to get you to kiss me, because if the necklace doesn't work then I'm entirely out of ideas.”
Ginny gaped at her. “What did you say?”
Luna simply smiled that care-free, teasing smile of hers.
“You never -” Ginny tripped over her words. “I didn't think you wanted to.”
“Well, now you know better.”
“Well -” Ginny frowned. “You're making fun of me.”
“Do you actually want to kiss me?”
“Oh. Yes.”
And then their lips met – gently, hesitantly, only for a moment or two – but Ginny felt as though she was on fire, every part of her right down to her toes.
They pulled apart for only a moment before they were kissing again, and again, each time a little more confident, until they broke apart breathless and giggling and were thrown out the library by Madam Pince for making too much noise. Their homework was abandoned in order to hold hands as they walked through the corridors and kiss in a dark corner pressed against a tapestry and murmur to each other so that no-one else could hear, over and over again, “I love you.”
(A week later, Ginny threatened to hex someone who was painting a banner in the Common Room, and word quickly got around. Only one person in school was allowed to wear the Swift now, and she wore it around her neck every day, and every time their eyes met, Ginny flew.)