They say kisses with your lover taste like a thousand suns, that every touch as you melting, that every look as you burning with desire.

I am frozen at first when Draco kisses me.

Had someone told me in the summer that Draco Malfoy would be kissing me in the boy's bathroom, I would've laughed in their faces.

But here I am, with his lips on mine.

I wrap my arms around his neck, fire spreading across my neck and arms, and everywhere, like we are a house on fire, burning, turning to rubble with each other. They say kisses are like fireworks, exploding with color, but it was like the sun, so blinding and shining and burning.

I've kissed a few people before, for either jokes, dares, or the occasional date, but it was all innocent. Maybe a simple peck on the lips as we both blushed red, but nothing more than that. Now, we share multiple kisses, pulling each other closer as we lose air, the fire raging. We are a mixture of sweat, tears, and confessions, all piled and burned to cinders.

He breaks the kiss, huffing softly. "You're not a bad kisser."

I start to laugh, my skin like an inferno. My brain is spinning, and the hand on my throat has left, letting me breathe. He stares at me, his eyes alight.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," he says, before bringing my lips to his once more.

Our house is now burned completely.

. . .

I regret it all when I head back into my dorm. A part of me wants to take the note I wrote about my memories and shred it to pieces, but I don't. I just sit there as my brain catches with the night.

Draco Malfoy kissed me. And I kissed back.

What have I done?

"You're late."

I jump as Susan Bones closes her book, giving me an odd look. She's cross-legged on our bed, in our empty dorm.

"I went for a walk," I mutter.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to see her disappointed face, no, my disappointed face in the mirror, all puffy-eyed with dried tears and an extinguished fire. I don't want to see the dents under my eyes, the messy tufts of my hair, the swell of my lips, the fading bruise-marks of my neck.

I remove my jumper as Susan opens her book, sighing. "You're lying, again."

"Yeah," I murmur, climbing into my bed. She knows everything, even though we barely talk, even though I used to try and say words to her, but my mouth resisted every single time. "I'm not proud of what I did today."

Susan yawns softly, covering her mouth. She glances at Hannah Abbott's bed before her eyes wander to mine. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"It was." I sigh, pulling up my covers. I don't know if I mean it or not. "It really was."

"Then why did you do it?"

She gives me a curious look, but then it freezes on her face when she really glances at my lips, then my eyes, then my hair.

"What happened to you?" she asks. There is something in her expression, cold and sharp, as if she wants to burn the world and cry at the same time.

"Nothing like that," I quickly assure her, my eyes widening.

She nods, sighing as her expression relaxes. "You scared me, Potter."

I try giving her a smile, but I doubt it comes across as real. "It's okay. There's nothing to be scared of."

"Good. And I'm assuming that you kissed someone, then?"

She says this lightly, eyes crinkled and expression mirthful, and I turn my head away, furiously blushing.

"Well, that tells me everything I need to know."

"Fine," I mutter. "I may have kissed someone."

"Then why do you regret it?" she asks, and my stomach is a rollercoaster, looping endlessly.

I sigh, turning my head back to face her. "It wasn't with the right person."

My heart seems to disagree.

"I'm sorry, then." She lies down on her bed, her hair spreading across the pillow, like a fairy. "I won't press."

I close my eyes, prepared to sleep, when a burning statement escapes my mouth.

"I'm sorry, Susan."

"Don't say that, Potter. You have nothing to apologize for."

You have no idea, Susan, I want to tell her. But I refrain. You have no idea.

But within a day, everything has changed.

I am back in class, as if nothing happened, as if I wasn't crying in bed once. In fact, I even met up with Harry, assuring him that what I was planning to tell him in the bathroom was stupid and unneeded. I tell Susan hi every morning, and sometimes spend breakfast with her, smiling and laughing at the most trivial things.

In the night, I sneak out of my room, despite my brain telling me something's wrong. I know it is. Nothing ever lasts when it comes to me. I turn it all to dust, but I want to relish it before everything crumbles. Again.

My kisses with Draco are something I think about all night as I fall asleep; it feels so wrong and right, like my stomach is getting more and more tangled day by day, but the hand on my neck is almost gone. My brain says no, but my heart says yes as I tangle my hands in my light hair, as the moonlight shines on my face, and as we laugh in the dark.

We don't think about the future, of Susan's disappointment and Harry's rage and my further isolation, of Draco's father and mother and his own life.

I tell no one; he tells no one. We lean on each other, our faces barely visible as the house we built of each other still burns. My scars are fading, my stomach is tumbling, and he is smiling, kissing my head, playing with my hair, and softly mumbling words in my ear.

It is by no means perfect. I struggle to finish my homework, to talk to Susan, to face the fact that Harry will always be better than me while trying not to cry at Slughorn's parties, but I face it all, because at night, I'll be loved. I'll be happy.

There is someone waiting for me, and I don't need anything else.

Obviously, not everything is right. My hair is out of place, and my lips are broken and swollen. Remus's letters come slower and slower, and are short than ever. He is growing tired, and I can tell. Why must he hide it from me when I know him almost better than anyone else?

And as the Christmas Party edged on, I let myself stay in the castle, touching the walls, kissing Draco's lips, ignoring the fight raging around the castle. It was wrong, it was horrible, and it was cruel, but my heart didn't listen and my mind's voice grew smaller and smaller until I was used to ignoring the warnings, the pleading.

I notice Draco getting more and more tired, trying to keep up the pretense of doing well. I see right through him, his gilded mask and clouded eyes, filled with turbulent emotion.

And then he crashes the Christmas Party.

Things go horribly wrong. Harry is convinced Draco is a Death Eater, and he is right. Everyday I tell myself that it's for the best that my noble brother doesn't know that Draco is hurt by this task as much as the people around him.

Maybe I'm just lying to myself. Maybe Draco is destroying everything around him, and our house will consume everyone we love, burning the world.

I don't want to burn the world. I want to feel the flames on my skin as I sneak up to the Seventh floor, the blush on my cheeks as Susan embarrasses me, laughing melodically, to smile as Draco cups my cheek and calls me special.

But I just kiss Draco, and play the mediator, convincing Harry that I am doing nothing and that he should be doing nothing, that Draco is just a dick. Which he is, but he's also so much more. I've seen him cry, seen him laugh, seen him scream, seen him be angry, and seen him press his lips against mine until I can only see stars.

"You're so beautiful, Potter," he says, and we kiss until the entire world is underneath us, like it was just the two of us, enveloped in a fire, dancing in a bright musical, facing the blinding sun, losing my breath again and again.

My letters to Remus get shorter, just like his did. Some days, I stare at the window, remembering him and I in the snowy grass, dancing, me giggling as he laughed loudly, the world a blinding white.

And now, we barely talk, all because he's busy with the war and I'm busy trying to feel something, even though it is already March. All because we're too different to be father and daughter again, because I'm not James and Lily's daughter, because I have a small heart and brain and laugh.

The snow falls gently as I stare, almost mesmerized. But the biting cold holds me back, and the warmth inside keeps me rooted to my spot, thinking of the nights Draco and I will have in the future. 

notes / you will have some very interesting nights! 🥰