Chocolate Kisses



Ginny Potter sat on her double bed; she’d only gone upstairs to put away some fresh laundry, but then a certain photo had suddenly caught her eye. She looked at the moving picture of a couple on their wedding day.



The red-haired young bride was clearly the same person as the mid forties housewife now holding the picture. Her husband was a tall, black-haired, green-eyed, very handsome man.



The man in the picture was, of course, Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world.



The picture and memories it brought back to her filled Ginny with joy. After graduating from Hogwarts and living through the defeat of Voldemort, her life had been pretty much perfect.



Looking at that picture, one would have never guessed that the young man in it had fought a seven-year battle, resulting in a war and final fight with the powerful Dark Lord.



Now that the wizarding world was safe, people had found happiness in their lives. Harry and Ginny had been joyfully married for twenty-seven years. They had two children; Richard, aged eleven, was about to start at Hogwarts and Heather, aged fifteen, was a newly appointed Ravenclaw prefect.



Suddenly a voice brought Ginny back to the present.



“Hey, Mum, what you doing all alone up here?” asked a black-haired, teenage girl.



“Oh, nothing really, dear. I was just putting away some laundry,” Ginny replied, setting the photo back on the bedside table.



“Erm, Mum, I was, wondering…could I ask you something?” asked the girl, sitting on the bed beside her mother.



“Go ahead, sweetheart. What is it?”



“How do you know when you’re in love? I mean, how did you know you loved Dad?”



The older woman chuckled and placed her hand lovingly on her daughter’s. With parents like Harry and Ginny, Ginny knew she would have a conversation like this with her daughter.



“Love isn’t really something you can define, darling; it’s not something you can read about in books. Your Aunt Hermione learnt that the hard way,” she said, smiling at her daughter.



“I get that, Mum, but is there any special indication that when you’re with someone, it’s more than a crush? I know you and Dad first got together when you were fifteen, just like I am now. How did you know you’d stay with Dad and end up getting married to him? How did you know it was different from other boys you’d dated at school?” The girl sighed, her bright brown eyes revealing that her head was swimming with thoughts.



Again, the now greying Ginny Potter chuckled; it was a chuckle very much like that of her own mother, Molly Weasley.



“In a way I’d always known I was meant to be with your father, like it was our destiny or something. Our first kiss confirmed all this in me, though. Here, I’ve just had a thought; why don’t I show you instead of just telling you?” Ginny smiled.



Heather looked at her mother with a mixed look of awe and confusion. “Show me? How?”



Ginny walked over to a large brown trunk not unlike the one Heather used for Hogwarts. The chest had many things carved into the wood, mostly hearts with different initials such as ‘HG + RW’, ‘HP + GW’, and ‘NL + LL’. Heather knew they were all the carvings from her parents’ school days and guessed the box was one of her parent’s old school trunks. From out of the trunk Ginny pulled a round, shallow stone basin with odd runes and symbols carved around the edge. Ginny sat the stone basin on top of the closed trunk and turned to answer her daughter’s look of confusion.



“This is a Pensieve; it was given to your father by our old Hogwarts Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore,” the red-haired woman said, with an expression of tenderness in her eyes.



Heather let out a small gasp at the mention of Albus Dumbledore; she’d heard many great things about this man and was awestruck that her own father had one of his old possessions.



Ginny put her wand to her forehead and with it drew out a long silvery strand that looked almost like liquid. She placed the strand into the basin and it immediately let off a silver glow that filled the room. Heather looked down at the contents of the Pensieve, which was a bright whitish silver, cloud-like, moving ceaselessly.



“Now, on the count of three, put your head in the basin, let yourself sink in to its contents, and you’ll be transported to one of my memories,” said Ginny reassuringly. “One, two, three…”



Heather submerged her head into the Pensieve, feeling as though she was floating out of her mother’s bedroom and down into the silvery substance. Slowly she fell into darkness, then suddenly she emerged in a small room she knew to be part of Hogwarts. The room was a round, stone-bricked room, decorated with red and gold and pictures of lions. Heather guessed it was the Gryffindor Common Room. Within seconds of entering the room, Heather was joined by Ginny.



Then, suddenly, Heather realized that they weren’t the only people in the room. In fact, she wondered how she’d not heard the noise before. The Gryffindor Common Room was filled almost to bursting with people, all of whom were wearing school robes and different items with red and gold on them, such as scarves, hats, and even rosettes. Seven people in the room were wearing Quidditch robes. All wore expressions of jubilation.



Heather then noticed a girl about her own age; she wore Quidditch robes, was very pretty, and had streaming bright red hair flying everywhere. Heather knew it was her own mother, a much younger Ginny. Remembering that her mother had told her they’d be going into one of her own memories, Heather scanned the room for other people she knew. There was her Uncle Ron; he looked about 16 years old and was proudly holding the Quidditch Cup. Next to him stood Aunt Hermione; she too looked about 16, although she appeared much more shy and reserved than she was now. Heather scanned the room for her father, but he was nowhere in sight. The only other face she recognized was that of Neville Longbottom. Heather wanted to ask her mother where her father was, but was too scared in case one of the celebrating Gryffindors noticed them.



As if reading her daughter’s mind, Ginny replied, “Don’t worry, we can see and hear them, but they can’t see or hear us. This is my memory of when Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup in my fifth year; your father isn’t here at the moment because he was in detention. It was a very odd day indeed; your father was Seeker and Gryffindor team captain at the time, I was a Chaser, and your Uncle Ron was the Keeper. This match was our last of the year, against Ravenclaw. If we won the match we’d win the Cup, and if we lost we’d end up last and finish in the lowest position the Gryffindor team had finished in years. Your father couldn’t play in the match because he was in detention, so things weren’t looking too good. I was having to play as Seeker, a position I was all right in, but nowhere near as good as Harry. Ron was Keeper, but he always suffered from nerves, and Harry was the only one who could really help him overcome it. By some huge stroke of luck, we managed to win the match four hundred and fifty to one hundred and forty.” Ginny smiled, looking very proud of herself.



Suddenly, from a hole behind them, appeared Heather’s father, Harry. A roar of celebration filled the room at the sight of him and many hands pulled him into the room. Ron bounded forwards and told Harry the joyous news of Gryffindor’s victory. Then the younger Ginny ran towards Harry and threw her arms around him. Suddenly they were kissing; minutes passed as they remained embraced, the room in shocked silence, before slowly filling with cheers, whistles and giggles. Hermione was beaming at the couple, while Ron looked utterly confused. Heather noticed a black-haired girl staring at the pair, her eyes filled with tears and a look of total anguish on her face. Next to the black-haired girl stood a black boy, he too sharing the same look of anguish on his face as he gripped a shattered glass. Heather guessed these were people who fancied her parents and weren’t happy about them getting together.



Then Heather’s parents disappeared hand in hand out of the hole through which Harry had first arrived. The Gryffindor Common Room continued with its celebration.



Ginny smiled a teary look of affection in her eyes.



“Well, that’s all there is to see here. Let’s go back, my sweet,” the mother suggested to her daughter.



Ginny took her daughter’s hand and tugged her gently. They were now both weightlessly floating out of the Gryffindor Common Room until they landed back in Ginny’s bedroom.



Ginny dipped her wand into the Pensieve, drawing out the liquid silver strand Heather knew now to be a memory. She placed the wand tip to her forehead and returned the memory of her and Harry’s first kiss back into her mind with a smile. Just looking at the kiss had made Ginny’s heart ache with joy; the knowledge that she could now have kisses like that from Harry whenever she wanted made her heart positively want to explode with happiness.



Ginny turned to her daughter and spoke in a soft, low voice. The voice was different from what Heather was use to hearing from her mother; it was husky, misty, and a lot more childlike than usual.



“That, as you might have guessed, was mine and your father’s first kiss.” Ginny blushed like a schoolgirl and not as a homely mother of two. “Even without the aid of a Pensieve, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was both happy and angry to see your father. Part of me wanted to stand there in the Gryffindor Common Room and rant about him missing our most important match of the year, but as soon as I put my arms around him, all that melted away. The kiss took me totally by surprise. I’d had a crush on Harry since the moment I’d met him, when I was only ten. I knew we’d end up together, but as your dad only saw me as Ron’s little sister until he was sixteen, I put him to the back of my mind and dated other boys. The few minutes of our first kiss seemed like an eternal bliss that I never wanted to end but knew it would. The moment we broke apart and I looked into his bright green eyes, I knew we’d be together forever. If Voldemort was defeated the next day or it took ten years for him to be defeated, I knew your father and I were meant to be. I knew we loved each other and I knew nothing would ever change that.” Ginny sighed dreamily, a tear falling down her cheek.



Heather looked at her mother in quiet wonder. To have found and kept a love that special was real magic, and she was so happy she’d been brought into a family of such love and contentment.



“Hmm…” Heather pondered after a few minutes. “I guess I’m not in love after all. Oh well, plenty more chances, I guess,” she mused and walked out of the room.



Ginny picked up her wedding photo again and sat silently and dreamily on her bed gazing at it.



The end.