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“That wasn’t - I didn’t…It was an accident! I just slipped and you were there, and faces go bonk and sometimes there are lips on those faces…” Parvati’s mouth worked at a mile a minute, trying to convince Lavender, herself, and every piece of merchandise in the storeroom that what had just happened was not a kiss.
“Of course!” Lavender waved the idea away with a smile that did nothing to conceal the pallor of her face.
Parvati’s eyes got lost somewhere between Lavender’s hand and her lips, and she turned away before her face could betray her fantasies. She quickly found an open bin of Liquorice Wands, a welcome diversion for her attention.
She had ruined everything, made Lavender uncomfortable. She told herself that they could get through this. Best friends could get through anything. Yes, Lavender would leave any minute, they may not talk much for a couple days, but then things would get back to normal with time.
Emergency! There was a Licorice Wand that didn’t quite fit in its spot. Parvati focused all her attention on prodding it back into place. It didn’t seem to want to fit, so Parvati gave way and let it have its way, pulling it out of the crate altogether.
“I’m not normally so clumsy. You - thanks for catching me.“
Lavender hadn’t left. They hadn’t stopped talking. Okay, okay - play it cool.
“Yeah, of course. That’s what I’m here for.” Friends catch friends when they fall and forget that doesn’t automatically result in a knight-kissing-the-damsel situation.
The sound of Lavender’s feet idly shuffling in place told Parvati that she was still standing there, awkwardly trying to find what to say next. No, Parvati was the awkward one. Or at least the one who had given Lavender a reason to be awkward in the first place. How awkward.
“Are you allowed to eat that?”
“What? Oh.” The Liquorice Wand had apparently wound up in Parvati’s mouth. “Yeah, whatever. It’s cool - Uncle Amby lets me take things all the time.”
In the moment of careless distraction, Parvati had turned around, leaving the girls to face each other dead on. Lavender’s eyes were wide, and Parvati knew hers had to be wider.
“Want one?” She blurted out, brandishing the half-eaten wand in a gesture she hoped was more playful than embarrassing.
Lavender considered the wand and cracked a smile that did little to answer the playful vs. embarrassing uncertainty. Either way, the mood in the cellar lightened as she crossed to grab her own Liquorice Wand from the crate.
Parvati followed Lavender’s lead as she slid downtown sit on the floor, leaning against the stack of crates. The girls fell into their own brand of comfortable silence, made only slightly awkward by the smacking of lips against hard liquorice.
Lavender was the one to speak first. “Okay, so - confession time.”
That was all it too for the carefree silence to stiffen into a tension that froze Parvati to the core.
“I might’ve kind of lied about my date with Owens going well. It was sort of a disaster.”
Parvati couldn’t help but grin. “I knew that.”
Lavender gave Parvati’s arm a playful slap. “How the hell could you have known that?”
“Even you can’t fake happy. Not to me.”
“Fine, Miss Intuitiver-Than-Thou.” Lavender played her mock poutiness well. “All I’m saying is I hadn’t kissed anyone since Ronald.”
“Not that we kissed!” Parvati was quick to interject.
“No, of course not. Just… while we’re on the subject.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Well, I’ve never kissed anyone.”
“I know that.”
“I know you know. I’m just saying - while we’re on the subject.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Are those Fudge Flies over there?
“Looks like. You want?”
“You know I want!”
Parvati pulled out her actual wand, and a summoning charm and a heartbeat later, the girls were digging into an open crate of candy together.
“Padma’s done enough kissing for the two of us, I imagine,” Parvati mused. “And it’s not like I want to do everything my sister does.”
“But kissing? That’s not exactly something you want to miss out on.”
“I don’t know. Maybe its overrated. I don’t need all the problems that come with that, right?”
“Was my breakup really that disastrous it’s turned you off boys forever?”
“No, it didn’t really. I mean - “ She trailed off. Why did every conversation have to get more complicated when the word boys was introduced? “There’s just never been anybody I really wanted to kiss.”
Present company excluded.
Parvati passed Lavender a Puffed Puffskein and popped one into her own mouth. She loved the way the flavors melted over her tongue, and couldn’t keep her mind from wondering what the flavors would taste like on Lavender’s lips.
“I’m not like anti-kissing or anything,” Parvati said between bites. “It’s just I don’t see why I should rush into something. Like, I’ll know when its right - right?”
“Exactly.” Lavender said, “And maybe even when you know it’s right, wait a little longer. Like a month or a decade.”
“Ouch.” Parvati raised an eyebrow. “Your jaded side is coming off a little strong today.”
“Hey, that’s your jaded side that’s rubbed off on me,” Lavender corrected. “Maybe you’re right. I rush into things, and I’ve yet to meet a boy who’s actually worth it.”
“Boys. Right. Who needs them?”
“Another?”
Parvati looked down at the Jelly Slug Lavender offered, and realized she had no conscious awareness of the last two crates of sweets they’d opened.
By the look on Lavender’s face, she was just as surprised. “Okay, now your uncle’s gonna kill us for sure.”
Parvati surveyed the damage of the truly impressive pile of candy wrappers that had amassed between them. “Nah - he still owes me a birthday gift. We’ll just call things even.”
“You could’ve told me all you wanted for your birthday was a basement full of sweets!“ Lavender teased.
“Please - like the top three best gifts I’ve ever gotten have all been from you. And now you know what to get me next year.” Parvati dared a wink at her friend.
Lavender laughed. “One basement full of candy coming right up. Anything else?”
Parvati could think of one or two things, but she let a smile suffice. Lavender smiled back, and just as Parvati started to wonder when you knew that a smile was held long enough that it started to mean something else, Lavender had stood up and started vanishing the candy wrappers.
“Aw, that’s it?” Parvati whined.
“You may not be afraid of Mr. Flume, but I’m not ready to see how he reacts when he finds his entire stock looted.”
“Okay, okay, just one last stolen birthday candy?”
“One more. One. Not half a bin of one kind.”
“You’ve got it!” Parvati arched onto her tiptoes as she dug through the top shelf with deliberate focus. “Here we go - Exploding Bonbons!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Come on Lav - just one each.”
Lavender sighed in playful resignation. “You’ll be the death of me.”
“That’s how we’ll know I win.” Parvati waggled her eyebrows in a moment of bold flirtation as the two girls popped the bonbons into their mouths in unison.
Parvati was prepared for the explosion, but Lavender let out an adorable little squeal that she tried to hide under a cough, predictable as clockwork. Parvati couldn’t help but laugh a little. Not out of malice, but fondness. “You’ve got a bit of bonbon bon your cheek.”
“What? I do not! Where?” Lavender poked around her lips haplessly with her tongue.
“Goodness, stop embarrassing yourself - I’ll get it.”
Parvati licked her thumb and used it to dab Lavender’s cheek with gentle precision. She reminded herself to be wary of boundaries. Friends could wipe chocolate off friends’ faces, sure. Get in, get out, none of that flirtatious lingering. Parvati could control her own impulses.
But she couldn’t ignore the way Lavender’s skin warmed under her touch with the slightest suggestion of a blush. The way her shallow breath felt on her wrist. The way her eyes traced Parvati’s face until they stilled in an earnest gaze into her eyes.
And then the only thing Parvati was aware of was her own heartbeat, the power of which was certain to knock her off her feet and take Lavender down with her. That couldn’t be normal. She should be worried about that, right?
Lips. There were lips on her lips. How had she lost track of where Lavender’s lips were? How had she ever lived without this feeling, this heavy weightlessness that trapped her in endless possibilities? Okay, that was the limit of brain being able to make word thoughts. Only feelings left. Only the sensations of Lavender and the inebriating cocktail of tastes she harbored.
Parvati did not remember to breathe until Lavender pulled away. The breaths then came slowly and in a rhythm that now seemed to rely on Lavender’s heartbeat as much as her own.
“Did we just, like, have a first kiss?”
Lavender blushed, but the brightness of her smile outshined the redness of her cheeks. “Depends. The jury’s still out on that ‘slip’ from earlier.”