Written for Hogwarts' Around the World Event: France - (event) first kiss.

Word count: 688

About First Kisses

It's a thing Lily does: stating random stuff when they're on their dates and the silence grows a little overwhelming, or too tense.

Most of the time, it's sweet and funny, if a bit surprising. Sometimes, it unexpectedly makes James choke on air because there are things Lily has, very surprisingly, absolutely no shame about, and those are never what James thinks they will be.

But every time, it's also James' favorite quirk about the redhead who stole his heart.

Today, in between blowing on her freezing fingers to warm them up and dropping fistfuls of snow down James' back—causing the aforementioned freezing fingers—she pauses and confesses, "You were my first kiss, you know."

James loses himself in the memory—their first kiss had been so perfect (even though in itself, it had hardly been perfect) and every kiss they've shared so far has only made it more extraordinary, because it marks the beginning of the times where Lily and he kissed—and like an idiot, instead of saying something like, 'It was a nice kiss', he finds himself blurting out a truth he'd sworn never to reveal.

"It doesn't really count, but Sirius was my first kiss, you know."

Lily laughs, her eyes twinkling mirthfully. "Really?"

Even though his cheeks were pretty much numb from the icy air, James feels them heat up as he blushes. "Really."

"So, why didn't it count, then?" Lily asks curiously after a short pause, shattering James' hopes that she would just let this go.

"What?"

"You said Sirius didn't count," Lily replies, smiling mischievously.

"Well, it's Sirius," James stutters out embarrassedly.

Lily hums softly, nodding, her lips still pulled into that frighteningly teasing smirk. "Did you want to kiss him? Did he want to kiss you?"

Shocked, James trips on a small stone hidden under the snow and stumbles, only barely escaping falling down headfirst by gripping Lily's forearm tightly. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Lily replies, waving off his concern with a smile. "Are you alright?" At James' nod, her shoulders unwind and she resumes their walk. "Anyway, you were about to tell me how you ended up kissing Sirius—by the way, if you wanted to and he wanted to, I'd say that does count."

James rolls his eyes at her, but he complies—he knows better than to try to resist when Lily wants to know something. His girlfriend is merciless when it comes to that kind of things.

"We made a pact, in third year, he and I—Sirius wanted to date Marlene then, and I, err, well, I agreed to help him when he said he didn't want their first kiss to be terrible-"

"Confident, wasn't he?" Lily interjects with a laugh.

James shrugs helplessly. "Well, we are talking about Sirius here."

"Point," Lily says, nodding.

"Anyway," James says, "we ended up practicing on each other first, until it felt like we had gotten it right."

The memory of those moments is enough to bring back the flush to his cheeks, and James looks away quickly, trying to ignore Lily's ringing laughter. To tell the entire truth, James had been practicing with Lily in mind then, the same way Sirius had thought about Marlene, and from Lily's increasingly widening smirk, she knows that even if he hasn't said it.

Still, when she only hums and changes the subject, dragging him toward the Three Broomsticks, James relaxes and assumes he's safe.

He should have known better.

.

The next morning, at breakfast, Lily sits next to James, kissing his cheek absently as she reaches for the egg in a practiced gesture that never fails to makes James' heart skip a beat.

She waits until James is drinking his pumpkin juice to turn her attention to Sirius, who sits across from them. She smiles innocently at him.

"So, Sirius, I hear that you're the man to thank for James' skills in kissing?" She says it just loudly enough that only they can hear it, but Lily's laughter when James and Sirius choke on their breakfast is loud enough to echo through the entire Great Hall, and it stays with James all day.