Written for Hogwarts' LiM event: DorcasMarlene, Romance Awareness: Day 11 - Soulmate marks that grow along with your relationship, August Auction: Plot Point: Watching the stars, the Writing Club: Showtime 9: Making Things Up Again - (word) Imagination, Lyric Alley 15: Look out 'cause here I come, Ami's Audio Admiration: 14: On Air — Use the prompt set: (colour) red, (setting) at night, (word) glow, Sophie's Shelf: 35. Dorcas/Marlene, Em's Emporium: 17: Gabby (teddylupin-snape): Write femslash, Film Festival: 46: (colour) Red, Seasonal Challenges: Fire Element: (word) Glow, Snape Appreciation Challenge: 1. Amortentia – write about a first love.
Word count: 1456
wish upon a star (make it shine, make it true)
Dorcas is born with a star on her shoulder blade.
Or well, it's not a star yet. Just a pinprick of light, barely bigger than a beauty mark. But it's there, and it's hers, and it means that somewhere, out there, in this vast universe, her soul resonates with someone else's.
Still, for eleven years, that pinprick stays a pinprick.
.
"Meadowes, Dorcas!" calls Professor McGonagall, and Dorcas steps up to the stool with a racing heart.
She doesn't know where she wants to be Sorted, but she just knows she wants to be the greatest witch who ever lived, somebody people will remember and whisper the name of, like Rowena Ravenclaw or Helga Hufflepuff.
The Hat chuckles in her head and shouts, "Slytherin!"
Her robes turn silver and green, and Dorcas steps toward her new home. She hopes her mother won't be too disappointed her daughter didn't get Sorted into her old house — her father, she thinks, will be proud to see her in his old colors.
Hopefully, they didn't bet too much on it.
.
Dorcas checks her mark every night before bed, and every morning as she dresses.
It doesn't change.
... Until, one day, it does.
.
Her name is Marlene. Marlene McKinnon. She's insufferable and a Gryffindor, and while usually those two things do sort of go hand in hand, with Marlene it seems worse than usual.
She's the best in their year in Potions, and for some reason, she decides on their first lesson that Dorcas has to be her partner.
"You look less useless than the rest," she says as she puts down her cauldron on the bench, and Dorcas gapes.
"... Thank you?"
Marlene nods. "You're welcome."
Their potion is the best of their class that day, and Dorcas spends as much time brewing as she does writing down what Marlene is doing, because Marlene isn't so much following the recipe as she is improving on it.
It is fascinating to watch, but also incredibly frustrating.
That night, however, her shoulder spots a second star, so close to the first they almost look like twins.
There's no way to be sure, but still, Dorcas knows.
.
They're not friends.
A Gryffindor and a Slytherin, when whispers of another war led, this time, by Slytherin's heir are rising through the air? Preposterous.
But they're something. Potions partners, yes, since Marlene refuses to work with anybody else and even Slughorn isn't fool enough to ask her to, and study buddies, too, sometimes.
Marlene practices her Divination skills on her, and Dorcas tries not to laugh after the fiftieth time she predicts Dorcas will get her heart broken by a man.
She laughed after the first, too, because what man could ever compare to this — Marlene's chocolate hair, burning with copper hints from faint firelight as she bends over the teacups she keeps forcing Dorcas to empty.
One day, she thinks, she'll be brave enough to do something about it.
In the meantime, though, she's happy enough letting Marlene be the brave one, the one who drags her out to wander around Hogsmeade or who says things like, 'let's try to meet the Centaurs tonight, I hear the sky is going to be perfect for reading the stars'.
(They don't meet any Centaurs that night, but the sky is clear and the stars are bright, but whatever Marlene reads in them, she refuses to say.
She smiles, though, so even if there are some tears in her eyes, it can't be that bad.
So, yes, maybe they are friends, after all.)
.
By the time she's fifteen, Dorcas' shoulders look like they're part of the night sky. They even glow like it too.
"Oh," she says in front of her mirror, promptly feeling like an idiot.
"Well, finally!" her mirror snarks back, and Dorcas laughs.
.
Sometimes, they duel in DADA. Dorcas is the best in her year — fearsome, according to her teacher — but Marlene isn't far behind. Dorcas has the power, has the skills, but Marlene has the imagination to make a cosmetic spell deadly, even if she mostly lacks the will to fight.
Dorcas always feels very lucky when those matches end, and not just because Marlene always smiles at her then.
There are some things, apparently, that not even Protego can block.
.
It's not that Dorcas doesn't have other friends, because she does. Some in her House, most in others — not Gryffindor, though.
Marlene is the only Gryffindor Dorcas calls a friend.
Marlene is more than a friend, though, even if Dorcas still doesn't know how to say it, how to tell her, "You're my soulmate and I love you."
.
Dorcas' parents are killed when she is sixteen.
Marlene is the one who holds her as she crumbles, and the one who holds her as she picks herself back up, and swear revenge on Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
I love you, she thinks, but for the first time, it doesn't feel like it's enough.
.
Marlene traces the stars on her skin far too intently, and Dorcas shivers as she raises a hand to stop her.
"What are we doing?" she asks, her voice low as a whisper.
Marlene holds her gaze silently for a long time. Her eyes are so dark that they, too, look like they could be part of the galaxy that binds their souls together, and her pulse resonates so strongly against Dorcas' fingers that she can feel it down to her bones.
"You know what we're doing," Marlene finally replies, and Dorcas lets her hand fall back to her side.
The grass is cold and humid underneath her, but Marlene's touch is so hot on her skin it almost burns.
"Stargazing?" Dorcas quips, because that had been their goal, hadn't it? Sneaking out past curfew to go look at the stars, with no other reason than it being something they wanted to do?
But she had tripped over her feet like an idiot (because the moonlight made Marlene's hair glow like silver, and she had never seen it like that, not even during Astronomy class), and Marlene had caught a glimpse of the stars across her skin.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Marlene laughs. "Is that what we're calling it, now?"
Dorcas' heart stutters in her chest. "We can call it whatever you want."
Marlene hums. Her eyes glitter as she leans in, and then she steals Dorcas' breath right from her lips.
It's odd, kissing someone, but also kind of amazing. Dorcas never wants to stop; she never wants this night to stop.
But they do need to breathe, and so they break away.
Marlene gasps. "Wow."
"Yeah," Dorcas replies, her mind still blown a little.
"No, not that — I mean, yes, that too, but —" Marlene titters, nodding toward Dorcas' bare shoulder. "Look."
It hurts a little, twisting her head and shoulder to look at her back without a mirror. She's about to say that she doesn't see what the fuss is about — there isn't much light, yes, but nothing seems out of place — when she realizes.
"My soulmark… It changed." Her head springs up. "What about yours?"
Marlene's eyes widen, as though the thought has only just occurred to her. Hers is in the same place as Dorcas, and she tugs on her collar until her shoulder is revealed.
Dorcas forgets how to breathe.
"Well," Marlene asks a little impatiently, "what does it look like?"
"A galaxy," she says. "It's a galaxy. Is mine…?" the same?
"Yes." Marlene nods. She reaches out, her fingers hovering so close to Dorcas' skin that she can feel the heat coming off of them.
Because it's easier to study the tattoo on Marlene's skin than the one on her own, and since they're identical anyway, Dorcas lets herself stare.
She can't see everything — that would require Marlene to take off her robes, probably, and while the thought makes her stomach feel warm, she knows that would be going too fast.
What she can see, though, is breathtaking.
It's a galaxy, complete with an impossibly bright center and the twisted arms enlacing it, leaving almost shadowy threads of golds and reds amidst the glowing white pinprick of lights.
(Gryffindor colors, Dorcas thinks with amusement, but she's long stopped caring about petty things like Houses.)
It's like the stars from before rearranged themselves, from countless constellations to this, and it is slightly chilling to know that this change occurred after just one kiss.
But it is also comforting, because this also means that what they have is worth something, is worth a lot, even.
To Dorcas, it might even be worth everything.