Butterfly Kisses

Butterfly Kisses

By Senna Wells

Ginny and Hermione were having an argument. Not a real one, but an argument that you have with your friends for play, laughing and feeling at ease while bantering back and forth. In this kind of fight, there are no blacks or whites, just one big, solid, reassuring gray that makes those having the fight feel expansive and light inside, without a care in the world. They were bonding over the fight and smiling at each other playfully.

"I still say that butterfly kisses are ridiculous," said Ginny, bright and shinning copper red in the candlelight of the Burrow.

"But my first kiss was a butterfly kiss...really, it's quite sweet in a childlike way," wheedled Hermione, feeling as alive as she had ever felt, caught in the moment of their argument.

The expansive feeling was filling the room more than the candlelight or the moonlight that trickled in through Ginny's high, crooked window. It fed on good feelings and bred even more. They were becoming increasingly giddy, feeling as though they were sharing their lives and their selves with their simple talk of butterfly kisses and silly, light things in general.

"Well, what was your first kiss like then and with whom?" asked Ginny, playing Truth-or-Dare to Hermione's previous comment.

Hermione smiled at the younger girl in a broad way that was uncommon for herself; God, it felt so good to be sharing with a girl like this. Ron and Harry were sweet, but like hell she would ever be able to share her feelings and silly crushes, let alone butterfly kisses. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and thought for a few moments, unsuccessfully suppressing a grin that manifested itself into a shy half-smile.

"Well, it was a girl..."

"A girl?" interrupted Ginny quite quickly, shifting to her stomach with odd grace.

"Yes, a girl," admitted Hermione, shaking her head in a I-Know-It's-Silly sort of way, "but we were young, probably only six, so we didn't know any better."

"I never said it was wrong," said Ginny in a serious way, suddenly deflating a bit of the expansiveness in the room.

Hermione could feel the expansiveness leaking out of her chest, making it hard and her heart pound quietly. She felt nervous and wondered if she showed it as she looked hard into Ginny's somber blue eyes.

Hermione shrugged and tried to continue with her story as best she could, "Well, anyways, we were both in the same primary class and one day at break, we decided we were going to practise kissing. We did Eskimo kissing, you know, when people rub their noses together and go all squinty-eyed, and then we did butterfly kisses with our eyelashes."

Ginny laughed and said, "Well, doesn't Eskimo kissing count as kissing?"

Hermione shrugged again sheepishly, "I guess not. It didn't in our books. It was butterfly kisses all the way. They really are a bit more...spiritual in a way. I mean, I can see two lovers doing butterfly kisses as a part of foreplay, but I can't really imagine them doing Eskimo kisses. There's something inexplicably virginal about Eskimo kisses."

"You just said foreplay. Hermione's a bit dirty after all. Knows her potions and her sex jargon," sniggered Ginny.

"I know. You're unbearable. As bad as Ron...or Fred...or George," Hermione sighed, looking up at the ceiling for support.

"It runs in the family. Bill started it. Blame him," said Ginny, rolling over onto her back.

"Shouldn't it skip the girl of the family?"

"Nope. I don't get any other hand-me-downs. Besides, it's a fine family tradition. Who do you reckon started Bill off in the first place?" grinned Ginny.

"What, your dad?"

"No, of course not. Hasn't got the heart for it. Mum did."

"What!" exclaimed Hermione, leering over Ginny.

"Yeah, she's not so prim when you and Harry aren't around," smirked Ginny.

"Can't hardly believe it," muttered Hermione, pulling the covers over her head and nearly forcing Ginny off of the bed.

"Watch it!"

"Sorry."

They re-arranged themselves on the bed until they were both comfortably laying lengthwise on it, stretched out and supporting their chins with their folded arms.

"I still don't get what you see in butterfly kisses," said Ginny after a while.

The atmosphere in the room had settled. It was late and they were finally beginning to tire. Hermione blinked sleepily and enjoyed the moment before bothering to answer.

"They're nice, I guess. I haven't really done them since."

"At least you've tried it. I've got no idea what you're prattling on about. Now I feel virginal."

"You should, you are one."

"Bossy."

"Naughty."

"Know-it-all."

"Filthy."

"Mudblood," they agreed in unison, thinking of Malfoy.

Filthy mudblood, echoed in Hermione's head, tinny and distant but still managing to sting so closely. Ginny was quiet, feeling the other girl's pain through her silence.

Silence filled the room instead of the expansive feeling they had shared earlier. The candle was burning down, but the moonlight still persisted, radiating a soft white glow into the bedroom.

"Do you want to give it a go, then?" asked Hermione, "You keep mentioning it."

"I suppose so. I don't think that I'm going to be able to walk up to my future boyfriend and say with a straight face, say, there's something kinky that I'd like to try out called butterfly kissing. Besides, you're offering," replied Ginny lazily.

"Don't look at me; I'm doing it for you," said Hermione, primly sitting up and picking at a fraying edge of her nightgown.

Ginny pulled herself into a sitting position laboriously, acting for all the world that she was not at all that terribly interested in what they were about to try. This is Hermione, Ginny reminded herself while performing her act, none of that funny business.

Hermione picked a little harder at the fraying edge of her nightgown. Why was her heart hammering again? She was just doing Ginny a little favour, giving her a little experience. Oh God, why did that sound so wrong in her head?

"Right," said Hermione, taking charge because she was good at it and it was what she did best, "lean in a bit and we'll give it a go."

Ginny gave her a bit of a furtive glance, but washed it away smoothly and did as Hermione commanded.

Hermione leaned in as well and brushed her eyelashes against Ginny's warm cheek. She could smell Ginny, brave, surrounded with brothers, the survivor of the Chamber of Secrets and Tom Marvolo Riddle (funny, how she never got any credit for how she was the Girl-Who-Lived), cloves, cheap soap, and lime. She could feel Ginny's heart beating centimeters away from her face even though there was no way she could hear that noise there. Hermione pulled herself away and looked at Ginny, slightly dazed.

"Would you like to give it a go? You just kind of go wild, of sorts. That's all my girl friend and I did. I don't even know if that's right..." trailed Hermione.

Bless her for not actually knowing something, thought Ginny before nodding yes, she would like to try kissing-butterfly kissing-Hermione.

Ginny leaned in and closed her eyes, using the finest hairs on her body to trace patterns on Hermione's soft cheeks. A stiff ache was building up in Ginny's chest, a longing for something that she knew was Very Wrong. Kissing your best friend was not a nice thing, especially when that best friend was a girl, like you, and did not like you like that. But Hermione did not seem to be objecting to the treatment. Ginny pulled back for a short moment to look at her face. She had shut her eyes and seemed to not realise Ginny had stopped.

It was then Ginny leaned in very suddenly and caught her best friends lips before they opened in bliss. Hermione opened her eyes in surprise and Ginny thought in horror, her chest icing up and goosebumps forming over her body in agony that she had committed some unforgivable sin, but she looked only surprised and not angry, no, not angry at all. As if to assert that this was not Very Wrong, Hermione put her hand up behind Ginny's head and pressed their lips closer together.

Raw satisfaction roamed through Ginny's body, warming her in places that Tom's cold motions never had managed to touch. She felt unthawed somehow, opening herself up more than she ever had dared since him.

Hermione kissed her best friend, enveloping herself back into the expansive feeling that she had had earlier in her chest and even building upon that feeling to create a new one that she had not known was possible. She felt like a savant, moving and kissing and touching and caressing in a way that she had never thought she possibly could have. Hermione had wisdom and skill, but this was a sort of raw talent that nearly frightened her, but thankfully she was too busy kissing to let it bother her.

Finally, they reluctantly pulled apart, breathing in air that threatened to suffocate them for the amount of emotion that was in it. Eventually, they stopped breathing hard and simply lay looking up at the ceiling, watching the shaft of moonlight swallow a new section of the room.

"Did that just happen?" asked Hermione in a frail voice.

"I think it did," confirmed Ginny in an equally slight voice. Cautiously, she continued, "It wasn't...bad, was it?"

"No," breathed Hermione, "No, it wasn't at all, Gin."

"Good, that's good." Ginny wished her heart would stop racing; she felt like she was alive and dying at the same time and it was confusing her.

They lay in silence for what felt like hours and could have been hours. Neither one was keeping a particular track on time and the only one watching them was the moon, but they felt like there were eyes everywhere. Neither dared to move.

"So, when was your first real kiss?" asked Ginny finally, trying to bring the conversation back to something that was normal or at least felt like it.

"That was it," admitted Hermione.

"What about Krum?" asked Ginny in slight surprise and horror.

"We never did. He wanted to, I didn't. So we didn't."

"Merlin...I ruined it then. I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Well, it wasn't...proper, was it?"

"Depends upon how you look at it," said Hermione, staring at the ceiling with a tight face.

"What does that mean, then? Oh..." Ginny trailed off and felt very strange suddenly.

"Yeah. How long have you...?"

"Oh, since Tom. Felt so weird. 'Course, he didn't help matters," she stonily stared at the ceiling, willing herself not to think of him. The chill was returning.

"Ah," said Hermione knowingly, although this was all so new and exciting to her.

"You?"

Hermione frowned, "I don't know. I didn't know. I guess I just found out."

"So you don't mind then?" asked Ginny, turning to look at her.

"No," said Hermione honestly, "I don't."

"Good," said Ginny, nodding distractedly.

"Would you fancy...doing it again sometime?" asked Hermione, looking up at Ginny.

"What about Ron and Harry?"

"Who says they need to know?" said Hermione decidedly, pulling Ginny down to her and giving her another butterfly kiss.

They spent the night together, occasionally kissing, coaxing, teasing, and butterfly touching each other until they grew too tired to keep their eyes on each other.

Mrs. Weasley came in the next morning and sighed. Gracious, she thought absent mindedly as she picked up Ginny's discarded day clothing from the previous day and failing to notice that Ginny had fallen asleep with an arm around Hermione, they stayed up so late that they fell asleep together. Finally, she woke them both and told them that breakfast was on the table and if they did not get a jump on it, Harry, Ron, Fred, and George would see to it that nothing was left to waste. She left the room and the girls shared shy, then furtive glances with each other.

"What happened in here..." said Ginny, tugging on her pants.

"Stays in here..." finished Hermione for her, pulling a blouse over her head.

"Merlin, I can't wait for next summer," sighed Ginny longingly, combing out the knots in her hair.

They grinned once more and went down to breakfast together. Best friends.