Written for International Kissing Day 6th July 2016
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The first time he kissed her, they were stood in the pouring rain outside Grimmauld Place. Tears were streaming down her face as she clutched the note from Harry and Ron. It had been six months since they had set off in search of horcruxes. Three since he had been brought into their protective custody. She tasted of oranges, cinnamon and raindrops.
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The seventh time he kissed her, it was in the heat of the moment. Her face was covered in dirt and blood, her hair matted and stuck to her forehead. He had kissed her as though their lives depended on it; as though that moment was all they had.
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The eighth time he had kissed her it was a quick chaste kiss of relief after he found her in the courtyard. The battle over, he couldn't he had survived. He always knew she would, however.
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The eleventh time he had kissed her, it was to calm her fears as they said goodbye before his trial. She had refused to give up hope utterly convinced that he would not be sentenced to Azkaban. He hadn't shared her hope.
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The twelfth time he kissed her, he drank her in utterly shocked that the court had commuted his sentence to house arrest under Harry Potter's custody.
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The nineteenth time he had kissed her, it was a chaste kiss of thanks and comfort. He was a man of few words when it came to his emotions but she didn't need to be a legilimens to understand him as they stood by his father's grave.
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The thirty second time he had kissed her had been a kiss of triumph and promise, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks as she slipped the Malfoy ring onto her finger. She then vowed not to cry when they got married.
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The sixty fourth time he had kissed her, the guests had all clapped and cheered, save one: Ginny Weasley, Draco admonished her hollering, could not be taken anywhere, not even back to apologise for her antics.
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The ninety seventh time he had kissed her, he thought he could die in that moment a happy man. He kissed her as though he would never do anything else again. As though he could go on kissing her for the rest of his life. Then the Weasley clan all came barging in, demanding to shower their own kisses on Hermione and Scorpius.
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The hundredth time he had kissed her, he told her this was the hundredth time he had kissed her and she gently ribbed him for counting. He told her every kiss was memorable, some more so than others, but that he would keep counting because he never wanted to forget what it was like to kiss her.
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The hundredth and first time he had kissed her she told him that was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.
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And so he kept counting. Every moment, every kiss from the first to the last. And he wrote down the most memorable on a scroll of parchment that he then charmed to make sure that the ink never ran or faded and the parchment would never fade or decay. Then he slipped on his cloak and walked down to the far end of the grounds of the estate, a bouquet of her favourite flowers in his hand, until he got to the shore of the lake on the estate, to the tree where she would sit and read in the summer. It was her favourite place and so fitting that was where she was buried. And he left the scroll and the flowers and recounted all the moments again in his heart.
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