May 1999

"I've never kissed a boy before," Jack Sloper whispers, reaching for my hand.

"Jack, you don't have to whisper. Silencing Charm."

He blushes. "Right. Well, anyway, I haven't."

"Neither have I. Nor a girl. But we should be able to figure it out between the two of us, right?"

Jack grins and reaches for my hand, giving it a squeeze. We're sitting together on my bed, my four-poster in the Gryffindor common room. It's my eighth year, his seventh, and he's come in to the room under the guise of studying. Since it's already 11:30 at night, I'm fairly sure Dean and Seamus saw right through that excuse, but neither of them seemed to mind, so long as I keep the curtains closed. Ron and Harry are God knows where, and Jack is licking his lips and leaning toward me, a vaguely expectant look on his face. His nose is still a bit off center from the time he hit himself in the face with a Beater bat, but he's cute, brown hair and big blue eyes and always smiling. There's a chip in one of his front teeth from that same incident, and the chip is cute, too. Really, he's not as dumb as I thought he was then. He's rather bright, and very friendly, and, as far as I know, the only other ponce in all of Gryffindor. So I suppose I'm pretty lucky.

It's not bad, the kiss. I don't feel much of anything at all at first, just lips in need of some balm, any balm, and a firm hand on either shoulder. Then his tongue is in my mouth, and that's when odd heat pools in the pit of my stomach and I have the sudden need to fasten my arms around Jack's neck. He breaks off, just for a second, to smile at me and brush his lips against my cheek before kissing me on the mouth again. It's brilliant, really. Granted, he's not Harry Potter, but I knew that going into this. I knew that when he asked me if I maybe wanted to go into Hogsmeade with him sometime, and I knew that when he gracelessly walked into the dorm with his spellbooks in hand. He's not the one I've had a crush on for three years. But I can deal with that, especially when he's kissing me like this, slipping his fingers under my collar, running them along the top of my chest.

"How much do you want to do?" I ask, and he freezes.

"I hadn't ever thought of that," says Jack, backing away slightly, keeping his hold on my shoulders.

"Well..." I lick my lips, as though the dryness of his have transferred to mine. "I have. And I'm not ready for, you know, all the way."

"Neither am I," he says, sounding relieved.

"But maybe if you wanted to wank each other off sometime, we could try that," I suggest. I see him blush deeply in the low light of the room.

"I'd like that," he says, dropping his voice to a needless whisper again. I grin, because it's cute, really, the nerves and the whispering and the complete lack of experience on both our parts. He leans in to kiss me, and we do that for a while, just simple snogging and running our hands along each other's chests and backs, nothing more for the night. He leaves by 1 in the morning. As I part my curtains and lift my hand in a wave to Jack, who smiles almost shyly and waves back, Harry and Ron come in.

Harry looks at me. I can't read his expression. "You and Jack Sloper?" he asks, cocking his head to the side, examining me. I feel utterly naked as I nod and shrug and smile.

"Brilliant," says Harry, smiling back. "Sloper's a nice guy. Good on you for finding someone." He says goodnight as he slips off his jeans and pulls off his shirt, and I shut my curtains again, because I want to be happy with Jack, and something tells me that won't happen if I can see Harry Potter without his shirt again.