Marked By Fate

Chapter 1

No one knows how it started. Dark magic, evolution, human nature. There are thousands of theories, all to no avail. We know as little as we always have. And it's your day to experience it.

It's your sixteenth birthday. At exactly 4:17 P.M, you will receive your mark. They appear right at the time you were born. It's very unlucky for people born in the middle of the night since apparently, the marking process is painful.

You can't decide if you're jittery from excitement or fear. Maybe it's both, but all you know is that Snape has lectured you three times and you still can't keep still.

"Miss Cowan!" he says loudly. "Five points from Hufflepuff for insolence and disturbing the class!"

"Sorry, Professor," you mumble under your breath. He glares at you and turns back to teaching about cloaking potions.

As soon as your final class is dismissed, you rush up to your dorm. You don't want to be in public while you're marked, which means you've got 17 minutes to get to the cellar and into your room.

You make it in 10. Your dorm is bright and lovely, and you can't help but smile when you walk in. It smells sweet, and it's covered in yellow. Yellow walls, yellow bedsheets, yellow rug. You sit gingerly on your bed and wait. While the minutes tick down, a certain Slytherin creeps into your thoughts. Draco Malfoy, your handsome and infuriatingly oblivious best friend. You can't help but hope that his mark will match yours. He already has his, but he's never told you about it. It would probably be better if he had, and you could get over this stupid infatuation. Shaking him from your mind, you focus on the clock.

5 more minutes.

3 more minutes.

1 more minute.

A light burning sensation creeps up your leg to your stomach. It stops on the left side of your rib cage. You lift your shirt to see it. There's nothing there, which confuses you. Maybe it didn't work? Maybe you don't have a soulmate.

Blinding pain overtakes you. Someone is pressing a burning hot iron to your ribs, someone is branding you, scorching your skin. You can't scream. You can't cry. You feel frozen in pain.

It won't stop.

Please make it stop.

The pain pulls away slowly, receding back down your legs, following the path it came. As it leaves your body, you notice that you're trembling. Relief surges through you when all of the pain dissipates, and you collapse on your bed, your lungs heaving. When you try to sit up, your abs feel like jelly and you sink back down.

After a moment, you force yourself to sit up fully. It takes much more energy than it should have. As soon as you're upright, the anxiety sets back in. This mark, this brand, would be on you forever. It determines your soulmate, the most important person in your life.

With shaky hands, you lift the hem of your shirt and scan your ribcage for the mark. It's tiny, so small it takes a moment to make it out. Slowly, your eyes focus on the little form.

A bird. A miniature bird, its wings extended in flight across your skin. You gently trace your fingers on the mark, flinching at the contact. It stings slightly, but the feeling quickly fades, replaced by a feeling of warmth. Somewhere, someone is thinking about the little bird on their skin, wondering about the person it connects them to. An image of a very shirtless Draco with a bird tattoo pushes its way into your mind, and you shove it back out quickly.

"Not the time," you mutter to yourself. It's dinner time, and you hardly ate lunch because of your nerves. With difficulty, you haul yourself off the bed and pull on some shoes.