Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. There's internalized ableism ahead as well.

Author's Note(s): This piece was written for a challenge in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) on the FFN forum.

The Challenge Information:
House: Gryffindor
Category: Romance Awareness Challenge (Soulmates)
Day [Challenge]: Day 03 [First Words on Arms]
Prompt[s]: Declare (word)
Word Count: 2653

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The Silence on Their Skin

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"The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well." – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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The Words were a blessing from Mother Magic. There were people who cursed them (too generic to guarantee the Knowing) and those who argued against them (destiny versus free will), but no one argued that they were a blessing. If the Words were there, then you were guaranteed to meet their Speaker. It didn't guarantee a happily ever after, but there was the chance, and sometimes that's all that mattered. The chance was the blessing.

Neville had always thought his Words were odd. Outside of their cryptic declaration, they were placed off-center. Most words were centered on the forearm of the wand-arm, but Neville's were lowered, as if something was supposed to have been above them. There was nothing there and nothing hidden either (not that he had the Healer check for glamours or anything while Gran's back was turned). It was just blank skin above curly letters which twisted upon themselves like they wanted to be Celtic knots.

"He loves you, you know. It's in his eyes."

Neville didn't know for certain, but he had a feeling that whoever he was would be important—important beyond being the subject of his soulmate's first words to him. He traced the empty skin and pondered something he refused to voice. People didn't have multiple soulmates. Magic already blessed magi with the Words; to ask for more would have been greedy beyond belief. There were rumors, of course—legends, really—of those who had been granted more than one. There was no way that he could be one of those heroes, not when it had been so much in doubt that he would even have enough magic to attend Hogwarts. His fingertips tingled where they were touching the blank skin, and he turned his thoughts away from such impossible dreams. The Words still haunted him.

"He loves you, you know. It's in his eyes."

Without realizing it, Neville found himself paying closer attention to people's eyes. It was greedy, but he wanted the unspoken promise of his Words and their misplacement. He wanted to tell his soulmate that he knew and could they maybe love him together? The Words weren't a guarantee, just the promise of a chance, but it seemed awfully rude to ignore someone who already loved him by the time he met his Speaker.

It would be in his eyes, after all.

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Luna's mother had the habit of giving Luna's wand-arm two kisses every night before giving a final one on Luna's forehead. Luna wasn't supposed to talk about why. It was a secret that needed to stay that way for grown-up reasons that wouldn't always be around. Someday, it would be alright to let people know about why her arm got two goodnight kisses instead of just one. Mommy hadn't know why the Words of one of them were there while the other's weren't, but she had been so certain that Luna just knew things would work out somehow.

When the explosion had sent Mommy beyond the Veil, Luna made sure that she gave her soulmates their nightly kisses. It was important that they knew they were loved, even without meeting yet. Luna would sometimes whisper to the marks—the aristocratic crispness of her Words and the silent stretch above them. She would imagine that somewhere far away, wherever they were waiting, they could hear her, even if they couldn't respond. So she would tell them about her day, and about hunting for creatures with Daddy, and how Ginny had gotten mean since Mommy died. In the moments when loneliness seemed to drown her, she would put her lips against her arm and whisper promises of love and companionship and forever and ever until the feeling went away.

Daddy had always given the best hugs, but as Luna grew older and Mommy's death became further in the past, his hugs had begun to take on a desperate edge. It was as if those moments were all that were holding him together. It served as a reminder that while the Words were a promise of meeting one's soulmate, there was no guarantee of happy endings. Instead of scaring her off at the prospect of losing her Other not just once but twice, Luna clung to the idea that it meant more love for all of them. Someday, she'd be able to look at someone and be able to agree with someone else that he had eyes worth falling in love.

Someday, she would understand why her arm had the blank space that it did.

And she would love them both, just the same.

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No one explained what the words meant to Harry. He picked up enough from the discussions around him to know they were important and were supposed to mean something. No one explained what it meant that he had two distinctly different handwriting on his arm—old-fashioned calligraphy that declared that his eyes were green and loopy curls spoke of something called thestrals. No one explained anything to him.

And trapped in his own silence like he was, it was a long time before Harry had the tools to ask.

That had been a mistake.

Harry would have rather the words stay a mystery than live with the knowledge that someday he would meet someone who would be his (near) perfect match and there was no way for them to know about him in return. He didn't want to know that he would have that moment happen twice. Two people out there were damned to life without a soulmate because Harry was such a freak that he couldn't speak. Just like he had ruined the lives of his aunt and uncle by being dumped on their doorstep, by just existing, he had ruined the lives of the two people who he should have brought only happiness. The words were not a guarantee of forever, just a promise of meeting—and Harry's willfulness made his words into a lie. That thought hurt more than coming to understand the reason his parents crashed that night was because they had been drinking away their misery at having him.

All Harry seemed to do was steal other people's chances at happiness, like a specialized leech. Not even learning about magic could shift that awareness from his heart. Even if his parents hadn't died in a drunken crash, they were still dead because he existed. Harry could read between the lines enough to know that they could have lived if it weren't for him, either drawing their killer's attention to them or slowing them down enough that they got caught. He could only imagine how he would burden the people who would someday speak the words on his arm.

So when Hermione Granger had dragged the owner of the missing Trevor into his compartment on the Hogwarts Express back in first year and the blond had announced to the assembled group that Harry's eyes were green, Harry hadn't given away anything. He had already stolen the promise made by fate; he wasn't going to steal anything more. It didn't stop him from falling in love with the boy, perpetually lost toad and all. As it steadily became clear that Voldemort wasn't quite as gone as everyone had wanted, Harry let that love solidify his resolve to let Neville find someone who wouldn't be so useless and dangerous.

Much of Harry's time was spent struggling to keep up with the other students in the wanded subjects. He understood all the theory and if the subject didn't have any foolish wand-waving, he could easily do the practical aspect of it. Whatever had stolen his voice continued to hinder him when it came to spell-casting. Trying to keep up with his agemates took up the free time he had always meant to use to look up what a thestral was. Thus when he returned to Hogwarts for his fifth year, the dragon-like horses pulling the carriages took him by surprise.

The dreamy voice drifting down from the carriage giving him the information was even more of a surprise. Harry had previously thought Neville was the most beautiful person he had seen. The girl staring back at him now challenge that assessment. In the fading light, her pale skin seemed to glow faintly like a unicorn. Her shy grin had a beatific quality to it. His resolve wavered like the flame of a candle in a breeze. As if sensing his weakness, her smile twitched at the corner, ready to grow. He could see how she would match the swirls and looks of her words—words he selfishly had but she would not, just like Neville.

He forced himself to look away, keeping himself locked away in the silence that had been his constant companion since that fateful Halloween. Everything supposedly worked fine, he reminded himself. There was no reason for sound to freeze in his throat, for words to choke him. Until he could give Words in return, he had no right to burden them; until he had taken care of Voldemort like he had failed to so many years ago, he had no right to endanger them. Both of them were better off without him tagging around as a silent third wheel when they finally found each other—wasn't that going to be a fun day? It would be a just punishment, watching them be happy together, safe in the ignorance that his mutism had wrought.

Harry didn't see the moment itself. Teaching others how to perform the spells he mastered without vocalizations took a surprising amount of focus. He kept an awareness of them at the edge of his thoughts, but only a smidgen more than he did Ron and Hermione. So when a collective murmur went around the group, Harry had been caught unawares. Turning from Colin's fading chatter to see the Ravenclaw had yanked the second-tallest Gryffindor fifth-year down to an easily kissable level by his tie was a harsh reminder of everything that couldn't be, everything that he couldn't have. He couldn't—Harry always thought he could stand any pain if it meant the soulmates he had greedily stolen somehow would be happy. But just like the promise he had twisted, that had been a lie. He couldn't watch that.

Blindly, he staggered to the door to the Room of Requirement and out into the corridor beyond. It hurt so much that he must be leaving bits of himself behind, just chunks freezing before falling off as he ran for the nearest loo. It hurt and he knew that he deserved it. Eventually, he would have to face the happy couple and congratulate them—and because he loved them both, he would even smile while he penned the words. But right now, it felt like his soul was being ripped out of him, like Voldemort had him under a Cruciatus again.

Harry fell more than walked into the bathroom, already making the huffs that would have been wails in anyone normal. He braced himself against the sink, determined not to collapse to his knees. If he fell, he wasn't certain that he would ever find the strength to rise. His shoulders shuddered as he tried to relearn how to breathe. His insides were ice. This was too much. No one had died by watching their soulmates find each other, but then how many times had someone invaded a word set? He was Harry fucking Potter and he always did the impossible, didn't he?

The form pressing itself against his back startled him. Harry tried to jerk away, but whoever it was merely tightened their hold and silently refused to let him go. He had no more willpower to resist comfort that was freely offered, even if he didn't know who was giving it. He melted into the embrace. The steady warmth broke whatever had been keeping him on his feet. His unknown hugger managed to slow the collapse just enough that only his knees were jarred by hitting the tiled floor rather than his whole body. A second person pulled both of them into his arms, adding to the comforting heat that was beating back the cold that had threatened to consume him.

"I should have realized what you were thinking," Luna said after Harry had calmed to only to occasional hiccup and shudder. Harry wanted to die again at how heavy her normally floaty tone sounded. He shook his head wearily, inadvertently rubbing his forehead on Neville's shoulder. They should be celebrating finding each other, not comforting him. "Yes, I should have, Harry. I have watched you too long to have missed this. I should have realized that you were deliberately holding yourself back for some other reason that people would talk about the Boy-Who-Lived being soulmates with Loony Lovegood. I should have realized and I'm sorry that I didn't sooner."

"I should have as well," Neville added. His voice rumbling in his chest and sending a comforting vibration through Harry. The other boy stroked whatever part of Harry that his hands touched. Occasionally, a hand would disappear for a moment before reappearing for another pet. Luna gave a soft humming sound. "I've known you for four years now. I know you put everyone's happiness and well-being before your own. I've watched you do it so many times. It's why I love you so much, you daft git."

Harry tensed before forcing himself to look at Neville's face for traces of that being a lie. Luna rubbed her face between his shoulder blades and made another of those strange hums. Neville gathered Harry's face in his cupped hands to hold him still. Carefully, as if Harry was made of spun crystal, Neville pressed a kiss to Harry's forehead before trailing them down the side of his face and across his jaw. At the first brush of their lips, Harry's mouth fell open in shock. Neville didn't press his advantage beyond a teasing swipe of tongue along Harry's bottom lip. When Neville pulled back, Harry could only stare at his self-satisfied expression.

"My turn?" Luna demanded from behind Harry's back. Not waiting for an answer, the tiny Ravenclaw wiggled between the Gryffindors so that she was sprawled over both their laps. With the thoroughness of someone used to experimenting as a research method, Luna pressed kisses to every bit of skin she could reach from her position. When she finally settled on his lips, the exploration was equally thorough. She gave that little hum of hers before pulling back enough to catch his gaze, dazed though it was. "There's still a space, you know. I have Neville's words, but I also have yours."

At his confused look, Luna pulled back her left sleeve to expose her Words. Immediately, Harry felt his face heat in embarrassment. "His eyes were what made me fall in love with him." Above the familiar crisp calligraphy was a bare stretch of skin, blank—no, silent. A trembling feeling bubbled up inside him and he grinned before turning inquisitive eyes towards his fellow Gryffindor who had already uncovered his right arm. He should have been even more embarrassed because he had thought he was hiding it better than that, but the loopy letters declaring that "He loves you, you know. It's in his eyes" just made the bubbling fill him more. Neville had the same bit of silence above Luna's words. Harry's hand trembled as he pulled back his own sleeve to show the pair their words to him. Neville gave his own blush at the revealed "Your eyes are so green" while Luna gave him a gentle elbow to the stomach. Then the blonde dropped a pecking kiss upon her "That's just the thestrals. No need to be afraid" before wrapping her arms around their necks.

The future was not guaranteed, but it certainly was beginning to show a lot of promise.