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Daphne is in it to win it.
Of course running a kissing booth isn’t a competition — or so Draco lies, because everything is a competition for him. If there’s one thing Daphne knows about her former schoolmate is that he gets a hard-on by winning in anything and he’s been insufferably smug ever since he and Harry got together. He even has that calendar picture on his desk, the decent one, framed and pointed towards the seats in front of him, so that every visitor will know he’s banging the Chosen One. If he could make a full-page announcement in the Prophet to tell the world, claiming some nonsense about ‘pureblood courting customs’, he would. Daphne is convinced Harry must have put his foot down. She suspects it’s the only thing he put his foot down for, because he otherwise spoils Draco rotten, and Draco melts and coos every time Harry does something incredibly sappy and he thinks Daphne can’t see him, and they’re both disgusting. DISGUSTING.
Daphne should really ask for a raise. The noises she hears coming from the office sometimes… Honestly.
The kissing booth idea — Harry said it was Draco’s, but Daphne doesn’t believe that — was approved by Gruger, who had also pulled rank and refused to take part. “Who’d want kisses from an old bugger like me,” he joked to get out of it, “these two young’uns will raise enough money on their own.”
The unprecedented success of the Auror calendar had inspired several Ministry departments to use Muggle tactics to raise money for the various charities operating after the war. The Unspeakables hosted a bake sale (who knew there were so many amateur bakers in the Department of Mysteries: that was the real mystery) and the Regulation of Magical Creatures Department talks of auctioning dates with their staff in the next Ministry ball — Daphne has her eye on a dark beauty working in the Dragon sub-division and she’s saving up. The Magical Maintenance people are organising a Quidditch tournament between departments (which they are bound to win, because no one wants blizzards in their office for the next year or two) and, naturally, the Prosecution division of the DMLE didn’t want to be left behind.
So here Daphne is, in Diagon Alley on a Saturday morning, in skimpy little robes with her red lipstick charmed to stay put, smiling broadly at the queue forming in front of her stall. She glances at the much smaller queue next to hers. She smirks at Draco, who scowls back. It’s on.
Half an hour of cheek-kissing passes swiftly. The chest that contains each person’s takings expands as more money is poured in, and Daphne’s pleased to notice hers is larger — and no wonder. While Draco looks like he would rather be in Azkaban than here, Daphne puts some effort in her kisses, touching the person’s jaw lightly or smiling warmly at them.
Draco’s reluctance to kiss plebeians isn’t the only reason he isn’t doing too well. Outside of the Ministry, where people are used to him, Draco’s reputation remains tarnished. His high-profile affair with Potter might have changed the way the public perceives him to a degree, but a good number of people will still shy away from a Death Eater’s embrace.
That is, until Harry himself joins the queue. Instantly, half of Daphne’s queue moves to line behind the celebrity.
“How are things going?” Harry asks, when he reaches Draco.
“Brilliant,” Draco replies in a nonchalant way that Daphne knows is one hundred percent fake.
Harry takes five galleons out of his pouch and drops the gold in the chest. “I don’t want change,” he says. “I want a five galleon kiss.”
Before Daphne can cry that’s cheating!, Draco grins, steps from behind the stall, and pulls Harry close. There’s a few seconds’ pause, when Harry looks reverently at Draco’s face; when Draco’s eyes soften beyond recognition, and then their lips meet.
Ugh. They always kiss like that, like they can’t get enough of each other, like nobody's around them, like the world is about to end and the only thing that might save it is their kiss. This is almost indecent and there are little children around; surely someone has to say something. Harry cups Draco’s cheek, another hand buried in his hair, and Draco runs his hands down Potter’s back, skirting over the Arse Which Lived. Half the Prophet ’s photographers have materialised out of nowhere and are happily snapping away. The kiss goes on for a long time, seriously, what the fuck. The whole street has stopped in its tracks and everyone is watching: shopkeepers in their doorways, families with children, couples doing potion shopping, teenagers with brooms in hand. Arthur is beside Draco on the stall and Daphne wants to cover his eyes, because he’s too young to be seeing this.
Now they’re making slurpy noises as they attempt to pull away only to kiss again. This happens three times.
Honestly.
Finally, after what feels like hours, they pull apart, both of them breathless and pink and rearranging their robes. And of course now everyone has left Daphne’s queue to join Draco’s, possibly in the hopes they’ll have a little Chosen Saliva smeared on their cheek.
“Can’t you kiss me like that?” a teenager asks her boyfriend as they pass by Daphne.
“Only the Chosen One can kiss like that,” he says in awe. They join Draco’s queue, who is, after all, the Chosen One’s chosen one.
It’s time for drastic measures. Don’t let anyone tell you that Daphne has no ideas up her sleeve. She steps out of her stall, points her wand to the sign, alters it, and waits.
“Hey, Daphne!”
As Draco is dealing with the increased number of queuers, Harry pets Arthur’s head, who peeps in delight, and then comes her way. Glancing at the new sign, he hands her three galleons. Daphne smiles. Let Draco kiss hundreds of cheeks, Daphne will see that money soon enough.
“That’s a good idea,” Harry tells her, pointing at her amendment.
“People need the human touch,” she shrugs, aiming at humble, “especially after the War.”
She opens her arms and he steps in her embrace and hugs her back, his strong arms and warmth making her press him even closer. She’s never been this close to the Saviour before. He smells wonderful, like leather and the woods, and he feels safe, like…
“Ow!” Daphne cries and they both jump apart at the Stinging Jinx.
Draco’s wand is pointing at them. “Leave room for Merlin,” he snaps.
Daphne rolls her eyes and rubs her wrist, but Harry laughs and approaches his boyfriend, whose eyes are throwing daggers at Daphne. Harry murmurs in Draco’s ear, Draco’s face smooths, they lock eyes, please, dear Salazar, don’t let them kiss again—
Too late.
After the second, blessedly shorter kiss, Harry says his goodbyes and leaves, allowing the two Slytherins to concentrate without distractions on making more money than each other raising money for charity.
Daphne knows she had the right idea: people need comfort, even four years after the War. She still has fewer people queuing for her, but her pile of gold increases faster than Draco’s and he notices soon. With an imperial snap of his wrist, he stops his next visitor in his tracks and walks to the front of her stall to check out her new sign:
Kiss on cheek: one galleon. Kiss and hug: three galleons.
“This is cheating,” Draco hisses, as she hugs a young bloke, who’s visited her stall for the third time.
“Why is it cheating?” she asks, adding the three galleons in the chest.
“It’s a kissing booth, not a kissing and hugging booth. You’re not playing fair.”
“ Fair? Talk about the man who got five galleons to make out with his boyfriend!”
Draco dismisses the accusation with a wave of his hand. “You can’t do this,” he tells her.
“Of course I can. The point is to raise money for the orphans. I’m raising money for the orphans.” She turns to take in the two chests. Hers is once again larger. “Fancy that, though. A barrister making less money than his own secretary.”
Draco’s face assumes that calm demeanour that means he’s furious. But Daphne knows he can’t compete; Draco hates hugging (anyone who isn’t Harry or his mother) and short of rimming people — if Harry’s innuendos are to be believed, Draco is a master — her former schoolmate has no chance of catching up with her. Draco touches his buttons, deep in thought, and Daphne scoffs (stripping won’t help his case: he’s fit, but there’s the little matter of the Dark Mark to contend with), but he drops his hand from his robes and smirks in a way she doesn’t like.
It’s a smile of triumph, actually, but Daphne’s attention is drawn back to her queue, where an older woman pats her hair, calls her daughter, and seems close to tears when she pulls her into her arms.
The weeping woman departs, leaving behind a shaken Daphne, who takes a deep breath and lifts her head only to see that Draco’s queue has swelled and it’s actually snaking around the block. Daphne is gobsmacked. How did that happen? There are children accompanied by their parents in the queue for Salazar’s sake! She snaps her head to look at Draco’s sign.
It reads, Kiss on cheek: one galleon. Pet the chick: two galleons.
She notices now how the queue splits in two when they reach the stall, some opting for the kiss, most for the petting, and a few for both. Draco chats lazily away with people who wouldn’t normally give him the hour of the day. Arthur has single-handedly made Draco much more amiable in people’s eyes than his very public gropings of the Saviour.
Draco’s chest of earnings is double what it was five minutes ago. Daphne sighs in defeat. She’ll never beat Arthur, not even if she strips and offers lap dances to passers-by.
“This is unfair,” she informs Draco and he laughs, while three children next to him pet Arthur within an inch of his little charmed life.
‘But isn’t it against the rules?’ she asks Hermione in the Leaky, where they’re having lunch after the kissing booth ordeal ended.
Daphne raised 856 galleons in three hours. Arthur Draco raised over 1,400, and Daphne knows she’ll be hearing about it for weeks in the office. At least his victory pleased him enough to offer to buy Daphne lunch (or maybe it’s in apology for the Stinging Hex), and they’ve gathered in the pub with Harry, a bunch of Gryffindors, and Ernie McMillan, who pontificates about a new Wizengamot decree. Harry and Draco behave — for once.
‘Well,’ Hermione shrugs, ‘there are no rules; it’s just about raising money.’ She smiles at Daphne and adds, ‘You both did really well. This is an exceptional amount of galleons for a morning’s work—’
She trails off and frowns at her boyfriend, who returns from the loo with a green look on his face and sits shakily in his chair. At the same time, Neville pushes his seat back and rises.
“If you’re going to the loo, mate, don’t,” Ron says.
“Too smelly?” MacMillan jokes.
“No.” Ron shakes his head. “Too noisy.”
Everyone’s eyes fall on the two empty chairs round their table and they collectively groan.
Honestly.