Just a Kiss

Defense Against the Dark Arts, right before lunch.

Harry checked his watch; only a few minutes to go. He had finished his essay only minutes before class was to begin, and wondered what grade he might receive. He idly fingered Luna's wand in the pocket of his robes. It was of a light-colored wood, and sort of springy, he found, as he whipped it out for a second and waved it about.

"Potter!"

Damn, Harry thought, looking up to see his teacher, Professor Snape, striding down the aisle to his seat.

"Ten points from Gryffindor. This is not nursery school, Potter," Snape informed Harry with a sneer. "We do not play aimlessly with objects here--if you find that you are bored I will assign you extra work. Now hand that to me," he finished, holding out his hand.

Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes, and easily placed Luna's wand in Snape's palm. "It's just a wand, sir."

Snape twirled Luna's wand between his fingers. "However, this is not your wand, is it, Potter?"

Harry nearly hit himself in the head--leave it to Snape to know what Harry's wand looked like--although, Harry thought, all the members of the Order had probably been instructed to know such things. "No, it's not sir, I was holding it f--" he tried.

"Stealing," Snape cut him off, with a malicious glint in his eyes. "Twenty points from Gryffindor and I will be informing Professor McGonagall about this. Return this to the owner immediately, Potter, unless you want Gryffindor to lose more points and the Headmaster to know of this."

Here the bell rang, and Harry was unceremoniously given back Luna's wand. Fuming and using all of his power to bite back his tongue, he went out the door without bothering to wait for Ron and Hermione. Ron would tell everyone he had not actually stolen the wand, he knew, so he wasn't so worried about people thinking him a thief, but Gods, why did Snape have to be such an... such an...

Harry edited his own thoughts for content as he made his way to the Great Hall for lunch, holding Luna's wand out in front of him as if ready to duel. Noting he was one of the first at the Gryffindor table and that Luna had not shown at the Ravenclaw table yet (somehow Harry presumed she wouldn't be there for quite a while), he slammed his books down next to him and began shoveling food on his plate with a bit of unnecessary violence.

He had just started on a chicken pot pie when Ginny plopped down next to him. "What's this I hear about you stealing Luna's wand?" she asked, with the hint of a smile.

Harry swallowed quickly and replied hotly, "I didn't steal her wand!"

Ginny laughed. "Oh, calm down Harry. I know you didn't, but according to Parvati, who heard it from Lavender, who heard it from Seamus, who heard it from Neville, who heard it from Ron--"

"Ron?!" Harry choked. "But--"

"I told them you were holding onto it for her," said Ron, appearing on the other side of the table with Hermione. "The rest of it got mixed up by the rumor mill." He sat down facing Harry and poured himself a goblet of pumpkin juice. "Pretty fast, too," he added, sounding a bit impressed in spite of everything.

"It must be a personal record for them," Hermione commented wryly, shooting a dirty look at Parvati and Lavender, who had just walked in with a group, all of which stared at Harry. "It's hardly been ten minutes and soon the whole school will know."

"Just what I need," said Harry sarcastically, glancing around the Great Hall once more for a sign of Luna and finding none. He returned to his meal and ate with vigor--meat pies happened to be one of his favorite meals; he had developed a real liking to them when Mrs. Weasley had first begun sending them to him as Christmas presents in his first year.

A minute or two later, Ginny spoke. "So... what were you doing with Luna's wand, Harry?" she asked in a somewhat tight voice. Ron and Hermione glanced at each other and also waited for the answer.

"We were talking in the hallway and I had it and she went off to class before I remembered," Harry explained vaguely, mouth full.

"But how did you get it?" Ginny pressed, and Harry was suddenly apprehensive.

"I took it from behind her ear," he told her.

Ginny's eyebrows flew up, and she and Ron asked "Why?" at the same time.

Harry chuckled, relaxing a little, and shook his head. "I don't know, it just had to do with something Mad-Eye told me about wands and buttocks--"

"What?" That was Ron. Hermione was looking worriedly at Ginny, who was chewing on her lower lip.

Harry finally grasped what was happening, though a part of him was disbelieving. Ginny was jealous that he had Luna's wand... and might think Harry liked Luna's butt or something of the kind if he didn't clear this up. "It was about not putting your wand just anywhere because it might go off unexpectedly and then you could get injured," he said in a rush. "I had my wand in a back pocket once, and that's when he told me. And that's all," he added, watching Ginny. She stopped chewing her lip and gave Harry a small smile, and Harry, relieved, smiled back.

"Potter?" The voice behind him was prim.

Harry turned to see Professor McGonagall there, along with Luna. Luna's stocking was pulled up and her tie was on correctly, he noticed, probably with McGonagall's prompting.

"Thanks for stealing my wand, Harry," Luna told him dreamily, just as McGonagall opened her mouth to speak. The surrounding people gasped--Lavender and Parvati especially loudly. "I was just asking Professor McGonagall about wand safety, and she says that you're exactly right, there's a chance I could have lost a buttock or two."

A hearty laugh rose up from the listeners-in, and Harry relaxed, allowing himself a chuckle. McGonagall pursed her lips, but Harry assumed she was just trying to keep a straight face. "Twenty points to Gryffindor, Potter," she said in a low voice before leaving, and he could have sworn she winked at him.

"But you know," continued Luna, taking a seat on Harry's other side as everyone else went back to their lunch, "I think I'll keep to my ways."

"Yeah, I wouldn't want you to change," Harry replied inattentively, searching for her wand in his robe pocket. He found it after a moment, and, like Snape earlier, twirled it with his fingers before handing it to her.

Hermione glanced at Ginny again, who was looking uncomfortable. Harry, however, didn't observe this.

"Oh, and I got you this, Harry, Hagrid gave it to me right away when I told him you might have needed one." Luna went digging into her satchel and came up with a dark, curved object about the size of her hand.

"Hippogriff toenail?" Hermione instantly assessed. "Did you have a bad stomachache, Harry?" she asked with some authority, sounding very much like Ron's mother.

"Earlier, when I was talking to Luna," Harry admitted, while Ron picked up the toenail and sniffed it. "It wasn't all that bad, though, it went away after awhile."

Hermione frowned. "Well, perhaps you should cut a little of this up and keep it on you just in case." She took the toenail from Ron and inspected it. "Hagrid seems to have given you enough to last a year."

Harry doubted he'd ever use the toenail, but he nodded anyway to appease his friend. Luna picked a pea out of his pie, flicked it into the air, and caught it in her mouth. Ron grinned and applauded. "Nice one, Luna," he said appreciatively, and tried to catch a pea himself, when he saw Hermione watching him disapprovingly. "What?" he asked with a hint of exasperation, as the pea bounced off his forehead.

Harry laughed, and things went pretty smoothly from there.

It wasn't until lunch had ended and Harry was walking Ginny to her next class that he remembered what Luna had asked him earlier and what he had planned to ask his girlfriend. "Uh, Ginny?"

Ginny looked up at him.

"Um..." Embarrassed, he forced himself to go on, but lowered his voice in case someone overheard. "What do you think about... when we... I mean... when you kiss me, or when you first kissed me, what went through your head?"

Ginny cocked an eyebrow. "...Well, what's supposed to have gone through my head?"

Harry shrugged, ignoring the blush he knew had crept to his cheeks. "I don't know, rainbows, fireworks... lo-lights," he corrected quickly, having almost said "love"--not that he knew if he loved Ginny or even if Ginny loved him. They'd only been dating for about a month, and Harry honestly wasn't sure if he would know love if it came around the corner and punched him in the face.

"What?" Ginny giggled. "Who's been filling your head with all these crazy ideas about rainbows?"

"No one," he answered stiffly, scorned. "I just wanted to know."

"I can tell you I'm definitely not thinking about rainbows," said Ginny, putting her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing.

"Then tell me what you thought about," said Harry impatiently.

Ginny gave him a weird look, but Harry couldn't blame her--this was weird, asking her this silly question and expecting her to take him seriously. She had every right to laugh, he thought, and was suddenly mad at himself for asking, then mad at Luna for putting this dumb idea in his head in the first place.

"I don't really think about much," Ginny answered pensively. "When you kiss, you're just kissing... I don't think you're supposed to have something else on your mind or whatever." She paused. "You okay, Harry?"

Harry ran a hand through his dark hair. "Yeah, I'm fine," he lied. They reached her class, and Harry waved then set off for his own class, Charms, before Ginny had the chance to peck his cheek as she usually did.

What's going on? Harry thought, disturbed. Why did it matter if all these so-called "special" things went through your mind when you kissed someone? When you kissed the one you loved, Luna said, he reminded himself irritably. It probably doesn't happen to anybody, it's just a story.

Charms went badly. Harry was unable to concentrate on the Protean Charm he was supposed to be performing and was assigned extra homework from Professor Flitwick, something he was not happy about.

Thanks to Luna Lovegood, Harry could not get the desire for what he now thought of as 'firework kisses' out of his brain.