Title: Turning Ten
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Luna
Forum: HPFC
Challenge: Soulmate!AU Challenge
Prompt: Your soulmate's name on your skin as a tattoo.
Forum: HPFC
Challenge: FRIENDS Challenge
Prompt: Write about Luna Lovegood (8.18)
World: Hogwarts
Word Count: 2,098
The name became evident on a child's tenth birthday.
Before the tenth birthday, the tattoo would be a scribble—perhaps long, perhaps short, but never legible.
For children raised in a magical home, the tenth birthday was a rite of passage, and children woke up in the wee hours of the morning just to gaze at the name on their chest, right above their heart.
For muggle-raised children, like Harry Potter, the appearance of a name where an odd birthmark had once been was a little more shocking.
"AH!" cried the young boy, staring into the bathroom mirror.
"Harry? Harry, what is it?" Petunia knocked on the door to the bathroom.
Harry threw open the bathroom door, denim trousers hanging from his thin frame but sans shirt. "My birthmark changed!"
Petunia peered at the mark, which had seemed to morph overnight.
"What is a doogevol anul?" Harry asked his aunt.
...
"Blimey!" cried Ron. "Loony is your soulmate?"
Harry rubbed his hair as he looked at the redhead. "What?"
Ron gestured to the mark on his chest. "Luna Lovegood. She's your soulmate."
Harry glanced down. "That's what this is?"
"'Course," said Ron. "Everybody know that." The redhead's eyes grew wide. "Oh. I forget you were raised by Muggles. So, everyone has a soulmate and when you turn ten you find out who it is." He raised his shirt. "Susan Bones. She's in our year. Our parents wrote a contract right after her tenth birthday."
"Contract?" asked Harry.
"A marriage contract," said Ron, tugging his shirt back down. "Loony's birthday was last fall, but that whole family is a bit off their rocker, so if you didn't hear about a contract I wouldn't worry. She's my sister's year, so she'll be here next fall."
The redhead finish getting ready for the day, and Harry went through his morning ablutions without really thinking. Two days at Hogwarts, and now he had a soulmate? And she was crazy?
He wondered if it was too late to transfer home and go to Smeltings with Dudley.
...
"Hermione?"
The curly-haired witch quirked her head, but otherwise did not look up from the Charms book she was reading.
"Hm?"
"Who is your soulmate?"
The girl froze. "Pardon?"
"What name do you have? Do you know who it is?"
Hermione turned the page of her book. "I don't know what you're talking about, Harry."
He furrowed his brow. "Don't you have a name on your chest?"
"If I did, it wouldn't be any of your business." Her voice was clipped.
Harry blushed. "Oh, OK."
She sighed and looked up. "Do you really want to know what my name says, or are you worried about what yours says?"
He looked down. "Ron said that my name is crazy. He calls her Loony."
"Ron is a giant prat," said Hermione testily. "The only things he likes to talk about are chess and Quidditch, and he doesn't do his homework. He hates Slytherins as a rule without getting to know any of them, he's been mean to me since my first day here, and if you want my two cents he's not very nice to you either. What makes you think he'd be any different toward your soulmate?"
The tension in Harry deflated a bit. "You're probably right."
Hermione gathered her books. "Of course I am. Have you met her yet?"
He shook his head. "She'll come to Hogwarts next year."
"Then there's nothing to worry about until then," said Hermione, walking toward the circulation desk where Madam Pince glared at the two first years who had the audacity to have a conversation in her library.
...
The following year, Harry watched the sorting closely. When Professor McGonagall called "Lovegood, Luna!" he smiled as a tiny, fair-haired witch pleasantly made her way to the stool, no trace of anxiety of fear on her fey little face.
"Ravenclaw!" the hat shouted after only a moment.
Harry's heart sank a bit. He'd hoped she'd be in Gryffindor.
But before she went to sit at the table of Eagles, she made her way to the Gryffindor table, walked right up to him, and kissed him on the cheek.
"Hello, Harry Potter," she said. Then she turned and made her way to her wide-eyed housemates, leaving her dark-haired wizard with bright red cheeks and completely speechless.
...
Having Luna Lovegood as a soulmate wasn't too bad, Harry decided. She mostly kept to herself, and if anyone thought she was a bit odd, the fact that she was fated to be with the Boy-Who-Lived kept them from bullying her too much. She occasionally studied with him and Hermione in the library, and often joined them for a spot of tea with Hagrid, although she always made her way to the hippogriff pen after too long.
She also came to all of Harry's Quidditch games; after much prompting from Ginny, he even gave her one of his Gryffindor scarves to wear.
She didn't giggle like Lavender Brown, who wore Cormac McClaggen's practice jersey everywhere. She smiled and thanked him, and then she kissed him on the cheek again.
He turned as red as his scarf each time she did that.
...
When she met him in the Great Hall for the Yule Ball, his jaw dropped. She wore a bright red dress with a full skirt that came up to her neck in front, but left her back bare to her waist.
"Hermione thought it was important that I wear your house colors," she said, ignoring the way his mouth hung open. "Do you like it?"
"You look great, Luna," he said, picking his jaw up off the floor. He held out his arm.
"It's too bad she couldn't come with her soulmate. I told her he wanted to ask her, but she didn't want to talk about it."
"How do you know who her soulmate is?" Harry asked. Hermione had held that secret as close to her heart as the unknown name was.
Luna smiled. "Oh, it's quite obvious. He's completely enamored with her but can't show it. Not yet."
And then they were dancing, and Harry spared a glance for his friend on the arm of the Durmstrang champion who she had befriended that year, and whose fiancé had not been able to leave Bulgaria for the tournament. She looked… mostly happy.
...
Fifth year was the worst year of his life. In addition to Voldemort being back, the pink toad was out to get him. When her attempts to expel him didn't work, she took the roundabout approach to hurting him.
"Luna, I need you to lay low," Harry whispered into her ear. He held her and watched Hermione rub dittany into Luna's hands; they had all discovered that as long as they applied the salve right after, the blood quill consequences wouldn't be permanent.
"But she's clearly suffering from a Wrackspurt infestation. I merely pointed out that if she'd be more pleasant that they'd go away." Luna winced a bit at Hermione's touch when the older witch massaged the salve into the cuts.
"Wrap your hands when you sleep tonight, Luna," said Hermione matter-of-fatly. "And for Circe's sake, wear long sleeves and cover your hands. Don't let her see that you've healed, or she'll haul you back into detention for some trumped-up charge."
Hermione packed away the salve in her bag and pulled out a book to prepare for the next DA meeting.
"Poor Hermione," said Luna, leaning back into Harry. He raised an eyebrow. Luna shrugged. "She thinks the Fates are playing a joke on her, with her soulmate, but Urör doesn't make mistakes. Really, Hermione just isn't paying attention."
One of these days he was going to convince Luna to tell him who Hermione's soulmate was, but for now he was content to hold her and gently wrap her hands, breathing in her scent and basking in her calm as he talked himself down from transfiguring the Hogwarts High Inquisitor into an actual toad.
...
When Ron balked at bringing Luna on the Horcrux hunt, Harry put his foot down. His soulmate—her position in his life well-known to everyone at this point—would not be at a Death-Eater-controlled Hogwarts. It was a point of contention all summer; when the Death Eaters came to the Burrow during Bill and Fleur's wedding, Ron took Susan's hand and simply shook his head when Hermione, Harry, and Luna looked to him.
And so their quartet became a trio.
The Horcrux hit them all differently. It called Harry a failure, The-Boy-Who-Couldn't-Do-His-One-Bloody-Job, the reason all of his friends—his soulmate—were going to die. When Luna wore it, the light that Harry loved flickered and dimmed, and she spoke very little; she heard the whispers of how she was unworthy of a soulmate like Harry, and how could he ever truly love poor Loony Lovegood.
Hermione never shared what the Horcrux said, but she took to memorizing poetry when she wore it to drown out the evil whispers. She thought there was lovely irony in memorizing Yeats's "The Second Coming" during their mission, but it sent shivers up Harry's spine every time she whispered, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Luna almost cried each time Hermione lost herself in whispered recitations of "desire unlimited, my uncertain road," and "dark watercourses where eternal thirst follows, and infinite sorrow."*
...
When Voldemort finally fell—disintegrated, really, into his own, backfired spell—Harry collapsed. When he came to, he was staring into the wrong eyes.
"Hermione?"
"Harry? Harry! Thank Godric, you're alive. I saw you go down and…"
"Where's Luna?"
Hermione looked around, fear growing evident on her face. "I don't… I don't see her."
And then he was up and racing for the Great Hall, asking everyone on the way if they'd seen her. And it was too dark and too dirty and everything was covered in layers of dust and debris and he couldn't see her bright hair.
"Luna!" he cried as he threw open the doors. "Luna!"
"I'm here, Harry," came her perfect voice. He followed it to a corner, where she was bandaging Draco Malfoy's arm.
He drew his wand. "Luna, step away."
She ignored him. "As soon as I'm done, Harry."
"Luna, we need to take him into custody. He's a Death Eater."
"Of course he's not."
"Luna, his bitch of an aunt tortured you!" He suppressed a shudder of the night he watched Bellatrix carve 'traitor' into Luna's arm, cackling all the while. Luna's screams still haunted his nightmares.
"Yes, she did. Remind me to thank Molly for killing her later." She finished wrapping the bandage and surveyed her work. "There, all done." She looked over her shoulder, near where Harry was standing, and then looked back at the blond wizard. "I know you'll need to speak to Kingsley—let me know if I can help—but that can wait until later."
Draco kept looking down at his knees and nodded mutely. Harry pulled Luna toward him, protectively. She simply pat his arm and absently kissed his cheek.
When Draco looked up, Harry glared at him. But the blond didn't see it, for he wasn't look at Harry, but past him, with eyes wide in fear and guilt and regret and despair. And something else—a question, perhaps.
And behind him, Harry heard his best friend whisper, "then I will dream that hope again, but else would die…"**
Hermione ran past him and threw her arms around the blond, pressing her lips to his, and his arms snaked around hers, and Harry's jaw dropped when he saw Draco's hand drop to cup Hermione's…
"Let's let them have a moment," said Luna. She pulled Harry through a door to a small hallway off the Great Hall. He grabbed Luna and pulled her close to him, as if he couldn't believe she was still there. They stood there, holding each other, for what seemed like hours.
"You're OK," Harry said, finally breaking the silence. Luna heard the question in his voice.
"As OK as I can be, given we just fought in a war," she said. "But I'll be OK." She squeezed him. "So will you."
"I love you," he whispered in her ear. "Marry me, Luna."
She pulled away and smiled up at him. "So should I have Daddy finally send you the contract?"
Harry furrowed his brow. "What contract?"
She shrugged. "The one he wrote on my tenth birthday, of course."
*Pablo Neruda's "White thighs, hillocks of whiteness…"
**John Donne's "The Dream"