When I was younger, before the Wizarding world, when Dudley used to chase me; I always wondered: how can he not breathe? Why does he pant like that while he chases me?

I'd never had problems breathing, not when I had to run for hours to get away from Dudley and his gang, not when I talked too fast or for too long.
The word breathless never applied to me. I was never short of breath, and how could you be with nothing but oxygen everywhere around you?
It wasn't until my second year at Hogwarts that I experienced the 'breathlessness,' I couldn't understand.

I'd been running through the Chamber of Secrets in search of Ginny. My breathing quiet as the sound of my feet hitting the ground echoed throughout the cavern.

It was only a little while later that I entered the Chamber, Ginny was dying slowly on the floor, her skin a sick white with blue tinges where her veins showed prominently. There was a boy, leaned over her, his head down, seeming remorse.

"Is she dead?" Harry asked quietly, but his voice seemed to reach every corner of the room.

The boy looked up, and Harry took a moment to realize how similar the boy looked to himself.

"Yes,"

"There's no way to stop it?"

"No, there's not."

Harry collapsed to hiss knees with the softly spoken sentence.

"Who are you? How did you get here?"

"She brought me here. I was trapped in a book and even though I told her not to, she opened my book, and with each time, she gave her life force to give me life. I'm Tom."

"So she killed herself." Harry said to himself as he bowed his head to the floor.

He heard shifting but didn't look up. He almost flinched when a pale finger with smooth skin tilted his face up, "I'm sorry." the other boy murmured before touching his lips to Harry's own. "There was nothing I could do to stop her, don't be sad. She's happier now, for some reason she was in a lot of pain."

Harry only nodded, letting out a shaky breath that was on its way to becoming a sob before closing his eyes. Tom kissed him again and again. Small, light touches of his lips against Harry's own as he caressed his thumb against the emerald eyed boy's jaw line.

His lips started to linger, longer and longer until Harry began breathing through his nose as he reached out towards Tom and held on to the Slytherin's robes.

Tom's hand slid into his hair and Harry felt the spine tingling feeling it caused all the way through his body. He realized Tom was making quiet 'out of breath' noises as he pushed Harry back slightly.

Harry complied until he was lying on his back and Tom was hovering over him. His hips straddling Harry's lap as one of his hands entwined with Harry's next to the boy's head.

Harry didn't exactly know why Tom was shifting on his lap or why he would tense up every now or then, but when the Slytherin deepened their...it was a kiss... (wasn't it?) Harry almost panicked as his breath left him after a gasp that got stuck in his throat. He could feel Tom's tongue against his own, and it was like mixing something sweet and acidic together. He pushed Tom away slightly to breathe.

"Wh-why can't I breathe?" he murmured quickly.

"Because it's magical," Tom murmured back, his voice rough and his eyes half lidded as he leaned in to kiss the boy again.

"Will it kill me, like Ginny?"

"No, it's completely natural. Don't worry," Tom murmured before sealing their lips again, making Harry's thoughts a whirl wind of incoherency.

I suppose Tom had been right though, but I don't think it was totally normal, because still, even fifty years after the fact, his kisses, among other things, still left me breathless.