Parvati looked over at the Gryffindor boys who were seated some distance away on a bench on the terrace behind Foggy Bottom. It looked like they'd caught onto the fact that she wasn't wearing panties. It was something that her parents had often chastised her for, along with going out in the back garden naked at night. Her parents couldn't understand why Parvati liked to go about nude. They hadn't had much success stopping her either.
Her parents were prudes, stuck in the way things were back in India. They thought it wasn't proper to be naked, and even kissing in public was proscribed. Okay, her parents both loved to go to nude beaches, which was where Parvati had discovered her love for sleeping naked under the stars, but that was the beach, and apparently the beach had different rules. At least that was what her parents had said. Still, they gave up stopping her long ago, putting up charms around the back garden to prevent her from being seen and warm it up just a little bit.
They were always concerned that she might get sick. Well that and they considered nudity to be something done by the underclass. Parvati liked to point out that they were not royalty in the UK.
"I told you they'd discover it," Padma smirked. Her sister did join her in the back garden often, but not as much as Parvati end up out there. "And it looks like Seamus can't take his eyes off you.
"Just like Ernie can't take his eyes off you," Parvati shot back, nodding in the direction of MacMillain and Malfoy, who were trying to skip stones in a reflecting pool. "And you know that you probably don't have to entice Seamus. You've told me he's seen you nude."
"What's this about Seamus seeing you nude?" Hermione interjected.
"He walked in on me in the shower back at Easter when we were sharing the Boys' dorm after the Weasley twins blew up our room," Parvati said. "We both like to sleep nude and take showers at the same time. I really can't see how you go to bed dirty."
"I sweat a lot in my sleep," Sally-Anne said. "If I showered at night, I'd have to shower in the morning, again."
"That is the best broom ever," Ginny exclaimed as she returned to the group, having handed Neville's broom off to her brother.
"Yes," Hermione began. "We thought you'd never get off Neville's broomstick." Then blushing, she put her hand across her mouth. "Great the ritual's got me doing innuendo. "
"Innuendo?" Sally-Anne remarked. "We're not looking to reference romance, we're looking to hear about romance. Surely Harry's gotten the courage to kiss you again."
"Harry kiss me?" Hermione shook her head. "I know he likes me. His kiss was good before he went through the fire, but he's not very affectionate. I'd bet that I won't get a kiss again until Valentine's Day, if then. Besides that, it's not like we really chose to get together. I had his baby because he rescued me from a troll. He's with me because of a stupid magical ritual bond."
"Don't tell me it was just because of a bond," Parvati said, recalling that day. "That kiss was not perfunctorily made. It wasn't a kiss, that was The Kiss. It was fire, it was urgent, it was unquenched thirst for each other meeting at your lips. If it wasn't for your pregnancy at the time, I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to tell where your body ended and his began." She remembered how she'd felt unclean for even seeing that kiss. Maybe her parents were right about public kissing. Still, she wanted a kiss herself, and intended to get one this year, most likely from Seamus.
Hermione huffed. "That was just the heat of the moment. He'll never do it as something naturally, not under pressure, especially not with the risks we have."
"What risks," Sally-Anne asked.
Hermione mumbled something, but Parvati couldn't hear what it was. She could hear the tail end of it, "never happen to a fat bookworm like me."
"Hermione, you're not fat," Sally-Anne said. "In fact I think you've almost recovered your pre-pregnancy figure. You'll certainly be back that way by the time we go back to Hogwarts."
"Right," Hermione said, obviously not believing her. "That's not going to get me a kiss this summer."
"You could kiss him," Parvati offered. "I bet he'd kiss back."
"And you have experience with that?" Hermione said evenly.
"No, none of us have gotten a kiss," Sally-Anne said. "You have, so we ask the voice of experience how it is. Unfortunately she's too chicken to get another one."
"And both of you are too chicken to try," Hermione shot back. "I bet Seamus wouldn't object to a kiss, Parvati. Or Dean in your case, Sally-Anne. So why don't you pull up your Gryffindor courage and go kiss them."
Parvati saw Sally-Anne look down at her shoes, but her gaze went past Sally-Anne to where Seamus stood with the other boys. She was a Gryffindor. She had courage. However, kissing in public, it was something her mother and father had been against. She rarely saw them kiss, and several times leading up to her older brother's wedding her mother had chastised her brother for kissing his fiancee in front of everyone. It was something not to be done.
There was The Kiss, though. Parvati dreamed of it. She'd thought about getting a kiss of her own, dreaming of that kiss. She'd even had a dream where she'd kissed Seamus. She really liked the Irish boy. Maybe he wasn't her destined husband, she knew there was a possibility that she wouldn't have a choice in that, especially if her parents went back to India, but he was worthy of being her first kiss. Did she want to give it to him though? Or should she wait for him to give it to her, and risk someone she didn't want getting the honor.
Somehow she'd drifted off from the other girls while she was thinking and was now just a few steps away from the bench that the Gryffindor boys were seated on. Well, almost all the boys were seated on it. Seamus was standing with just his left foot resting on the bench. She pulled all of her courage together, ruthlessly suppressing the voice of her parents in her head about kissing in public, and stepped right up to him.
Her hand went to his cheek, turning him away from the conversation he'd been having, and forcing him to look right into her eyes. Then her hand went to the back of his head, and she leaned down just a bit. Their lips met, and they kissed. She was sure from the wideness of his eyes that he was surprised that she had just stepped up and kissed him, but then she felt his hand going into her hair. His body turned to face her, as the kiss continued, and the unexpected warmth filled her.
His other hand went to pull her body closer, landing on her bare behind just as a gust of wind brew up her dress again. His hand touching her bare bottom was like a shock passing through her. Both of them jumped back, Seamus tripping over the border of the walk and falling into the low hedge. Parvati suddenly saw the gaze of the other boys, and ran back to the girls she just left, her face red with embarrassment. She couldn't believe she'd kissed Seamus in front of everyone.