Tanvi

“How is this a first date type of question?”

“Probably because it involves so many embarrassing moments that you know it can’t get worse afterwards.”

Harry supposed she got a point. “I have to say, I improved a lot afterwards,” he assured, pulling her hair behind her back casually. “You never complained,” he added. His lips traced the column of her neck, which earned him real shivers this time.

She giggled as she pushed him away.

“Nice try—but you are not getting away from this.”

“Ugh, a bloke had to try.” He placed a soft peck on her cheek before resuming his position on the bench. “Wet.”

“What?”

“How my first kiss went. Wet.”

She frowned. “Wet like—you were underwater or—”

“No, no. You know back when—well, she was crying so—”

“Crying? Oh. Oh.” Ginny patted his back. “It was not your fault.”

“One would think it would help to cheer her up.” He rolled his eyes, ignoring the pinkness on his cheeks. “That’s what your brother told me, anyway.”

“You know Ron is not the best relationship advisor in the world, right?”

“Considering how long it took for him to realise Hermione is a girl… yeah, looking back, I see it now.”

Ginny laughed for a moment. Then she threw him a furtive glance before looking up, to the same kites that Harry had been admiring before.

“Was it a nice kiss?”

“I… I don’t know!”

“Well—did you want to kiss her again?”

“I—I think so, I don’t know, I was fifteen and I was a mess. Why are you asking me this?”

She sighed. “Because I got curious. I couldn’t ask you before and for all she knows Hogwarts, A History, by heart, Hermione is terrible at details. We talk about this kind of thing,” she added, unashamed.

“Like—”

“Like everything. Well, almost everything. Turns out I can’t deal with details involving my brother.”

“Ugh. That makes us two.”

“Anyway—details.”

“I think in this aspect I am like Hermione.” He shrugged. “I didn’t pay enough attention.”

“It was your first kiss.”

“Hm.” His fingers traced the back of her hand. “She threw her arms around my neck. I looked at her and then I just knew what I had to do. So I kissed her—first I tugged her lower lip, and it was as soft as I thought it would be—and I had spent a lot of time considering it. And then I was holding her face and—funny thing about tongues, right? You don’t really know what to do until you are doing it and it is just so nice. I felt like I could go on like that for days—you know when time stops and it feels as if there are just the two of you in the world, but in fact, you are in the middle of the Common Room and everyone is just staring—”

“Hey.” Ginny’s eyes were sparkling. “That was not your first kiss.”

“No, but it was ours—and at that time I was noticing everything. I would have given a much better recount to Ron and Hermione, except—”

“They witnessed firsthand, yeah.” Ginny laughed warmly. “And you know what, kissing the girl you had a crush on for ages—that’s also a pretty normal thing.”

“Didn’t we kiss after I missed the match because I got a detention for cursing my school archenemy with a spell invented by a professor who spied—”

“Fine, fine. Not the usual way.” She kissed him softly on the lips; it was just a peck, a brush innocent by any standard, and yet Harry felt again that same brightness that always came attached with kissing Ginny. “I know you won’t ever ask, but I don’t remember either.”

“What?”

“How it feels to kiss someone else. Not to say I didn’t like them, or that snogging wasn’t nice—”

“Er—I would rather not think about it. Though—” He fidgeted with his free hand. “It was seeing you and Dean together that made me realise how I felt about you. So—silver linings, I guess…?”

“Oh, no.” Ginny slid closer to him again. “That’s not the kind of silver lining we enjoy,” she said, and then there was nothing innocent about their kiss anymore; it was pure light, warming and glowing, the kind that made Harry lose any sense of time and space. 

When they broke apart, at last, Harry traced her face. “Sunlit days,” he declared.

“What?”

“Kissing you feels like this.” He gestured around, to the bright green grass behind them, where people were picnicking over towels; to the lake in front of them, where a water fountain was turned on, sprinkling them with steam when the wind turned; and then to the blue sky, only a few fluffy white clouds in sight. It was a hot day, and the sound of bird songs and people chattering just added to the normalcy that Harry most craved. “Like a summer day.”

She kissed the palm of his hand. “We will share all seasons now.”