Kiss One (1)

Culprit: Theodore Nott
December, third year

Significance: This one is important because it was my first kiss. Maybe it doesn't count, since it was on the cheek, and entirely involuntary on my part, but it happened first. So it counts. Not my fault, I hope you know.

It really was harmless. Nott knew it. But he was two years less innocent and I thought differently. I was on my way to Herbology at the time, which I loathed and he knew it. What he also knew that I didn't was that there was an unfortunately situated sprig of mistletoe hung impossibly high above the massive front gate.

I remember wondering why he was coming with me, but naturally he only got as far as the mistletoe. As I passed unknowingly under it he slung an arm over my shoulder, pecked my cheek and fled. I blushed a red I had no business wearing as a Slytherin and struggled to continue to Herbology without wallowing in mortification.

Bloody mistletoe. When I get older, I remember thinking, I'm going to figure out how to make it so that whenever I get within sight of a stupid leaf, it burns up and dies. Of course, I can incinerate the thing now, but... it's kind of futile at this point.

Kiss Two (2)

Bestower: Hawk Harper
First trip to Hogsmeade, fourth year

Significance: This boy was pretty much my first everything. Kiss, boyfriend, date. It's kind of embarrassing to look back and realize what an awkward little fourteen-year-old I was.

Hawk Harper asked me to Hogsmeade the first time we could go that year. It was so flattering, I said yes immediately, completely forgetting that I had been hoping his best friend Matthias would ask me. Looking back, Hawk probably just beat him to it. We ransacked Zonko's, returning with an assortment of things we probably shouldn't have been allowed to buy. As if it was a good idea, we decided to play a prank on Montague, the Quidditch captain that year. Payback for not letting him on the team as Chaser, Hawk said.

The most attractive notion to our Slytherin naughtiness was the idea of sneaking him a love potion. On the label it said that whoever touched the bottle first (it was carefully wrapped in plastic) would be the object of affection to whoever you fed the potion to.

Our idea was quite brilliant, if I do say so myself. I would set the bottle of sickly pink love draught (without physically touching it) next to my things in Potions, and act all surreptitious about it. Hopefully Snape would notice it and give me one of his insincere you-know-better comments—so he could tell McGonagall he warned us if we got caught, but that wouldn't genuinely discourage any mischief. Favoritism is not beneath any Slytherin, grown up or not.

Fortunately, Snape played along perfectly, if unknowingly. I almost felt bad. But none of that made it any less hysterically funny when Montague began stalking the Potions master. As soon as our success was confirmed, Hawk was so high on victory he kissed me in the middle of the Great Hall. This kiss was not so innocent, or harmless. I kind of didn't sleep that night.

Kiss Three (3)

Culprit: Blaise Zabini
After Slytherin lost the Quidditch Cup, fourth year

Significance: This was just cruel. He was probably drunk, and never spoke to me again.

I was sulking in the common room just like everybody else. Why wouldn't we? We'd lost yet again. Not fair. I had charitably decided earlier that day (upon watching Hawk cannon into Harry Potter and get caught) I was going to get on the team and redeem them of their four years of uttermost failure. I would be Keeper, so nobody could blame me for losing (I learned later—the next year as Keeper, in fact—how ridiculous this was).

What interrupted me from my skulking was disgustedly watching Blaise Zabini try to seduce my sister. After that failed miserably, he staggered over to me, probably thinking I was Daphne 2.0, and snogged me for exactly three seconds before I kneed him in an unforgiving place. He reeled backwards, laughing, and I never could look at him again without gagging. It was an unfortunate experience.

Kiss Four (4)

Bestower: Matthias Brune
On the train to Hogwards, fifth year

Significance: This kiss began a stint of awkward flirting between me and Matt. I was way over Hawk Harper, though I wonder if he wasn't so over me. Anyway, it didn't go all that far.

This was the year I got my snake. I was so bloody proud of it, I showed it to every single person I knew. Some of them were jealous (the boys), but others just squealed and fled (the girls). I named it Salazar, and may have implied that I could speak Parseltongue. But what Slytherin boy doesn't fantasize about that? (Let's face it: I was pretty much a boy.)

It was also the year the Death Eaters showed up. I noticed none of the older Slytherins—Malfoy, Crabbe, Nott—seemed perturbed. But then again I was pretty sure they all had Death Eater parents.

We didn't sit in the same compartment that year—the Death Eaters had us scrambling for a compartment at all—but he brushed past me in the isle. I grinned at him, and he mumbled something about hoping to get to know me better this year. I blushed, and I guess this encouraged him, because he pulled me closer and pressed a (supposedly) furtive kiss into my hair. Were I a Hufflepuff, I would have swooned or something equally embarrassing. Instead, I just blushed harder and grinned after him.

I kind of had to tell somebody, but Apollonia Ashby'd gone to the Yule Ball with Matt and I didn't know if she would get all jealous and prickly. So because there are no secrets in a dormitory, I had to bottle it in until I could write to Zhanna, a Durmstrang girl I'd befriended at the Yule Ball. She was quickly becoming my long-distance long-lost sister. I bet that letter was a mess.

Kiss Five (5)

Bestower: Matthias Brune
The first time it snowed (that year), fifth year

Significance: This was the culmination and end of my obsession with Matt. Maybe because he hit me in the face with a hard and icy snowball. I don't think he understood that while you can do that to a girl, you can't do it to your girlfriend.

I think he waited on purpose until it snowed to take me to Hogsmeade, the git. Of course, I thought it was romantic and just breathtaking outside. I've always loved the snow. (Though one visit to Hogsmeade I remember red snow behind the Hog's Head; it scared me a little too much.) I made snowmen (and women—and cats and rats and owls) every year in the Hogsmeade snow, and I always dragged some equally immature soul with me. This year it was Matt.

I have to admit I considered the idea of a hit-and-run snowball myself, and was just leaning over to execute it, but Matt beat me to it. An unnecessarily large snowball exploded over my butt. Straightening furiously and whirling to hex him, another one hit me squarely in the face. A blush was already painting my face, but flush from the cold quickly highlighted it.

As soon as he realized he'd made me unfriendly, he tried to cover his alarm and reverse the situation. Before I could bend down and fashion a weapon, he put his arms around my waist and kissed me. I froze, in more ways than one, and he laughed.

It didn't really make me mad, but I knew would have done no such thing if he was as infatuated with me as he made it out to be.

Kiss Six (6)

Bestower: Theodore Nott
End of fifth year

Significance: Apparently Nott had meant that kiss two years ago.

By the end of the year, things at Hogwarts were wildly out of hand. Defense Against the Dark Arts now consisted of nothing but Fiendfyre, Unforgivable Curses, and trying to escape the Carrows' notice. Even we Slytherins were careful to follow the rules. Anything less than perfect behavior would earn you a hefty Sectumsempra. Of course, if you didn't appear ruthlessly fierce at all times, you would get twice as bad.

In our house, we had established who could heal Dark curses, who could best perform an Unforgivable Curse (if the Carrows demanded a demonstrative volunteer), and who to throw to the wolves if a Crucio! was at stake.

I made the mistake of blurting out a dumfounded "What?" upon interrogation about the sword of Gryffindor a few weeks before the Battle of Hogwarts. It was the only thing that ever got me a Cruciatus like that. The Carrows must have had a bad day. I remember waking up in the common room with my head in somebody's lap. Tyronus Urquhart had Levicorpused me there and Nott, somebody told me later, had exploded.

When I opened my eyes he made a sound of intense relief. I groaned as a pounding headache set in, and he started combing through my hair with his fingers. The last thing I registered going back under was his lips against my forehead.

Kiss Seven (7)

Bestower: Draco Malfoy
Summer after graduation

Significance: This was the first time I kissed my husband.

I met Draco Malfoy when he was trying to get permission from my father to marry my sister. Daphne had been in his year at Hogwarts, and since he didn't particularly care to marry anybody, he just acted on his father's first suggestion. Daphne knew this and was nothing short of appalled.

I couldn't have cared less about him at first. He was quiet and unsettled looking—understandable, considering his known affiliation with Voldemort—and entirely unremarkable, as far as rich purebloods go. Daphne cared for him even less.

But then a month later, he came again, and my father nearly chased him off before Draco could get across that he wanted to see me. I was baffled.

Once he overcame my indifference I realized that we really had a lot in common. We just wanted to be left alone and neither of us wanted to mention the past two years ever again. Daphne began smirking at us and every time I mentioned his name, but I ignored it until out of nowhere, he asked me to marry him. I was so shocked I couldn't possibly have been more surprised when he kissed me.

I don't think he loved me, not that way. Not at the time. He was simply unspeakably lonely. But by the time I was pregnant with his child we couldn't live without each other.