When Cho went to kiss him sniffling and grieving, her cheeks stained with tears, it was if they both hit an invisible wall in the air. A pressure that grew as they got closer and pushed them away from each other. The closest Cho got to him was about three inches then she pulled back with a shaky laugh.
"Figures," she smiled weakly and reached out a hand to pat his shoulder and then dropped it as she stepped back, "See you around."
Harry immediately went and told Ron and Hermione.
Ron grimaced, "Oooh, tough luck there, mate."
Harry frowned at him, "What do you mean?"
Hermione cocked her head thoughtfully as she set her quill down, "I've read about this... Sometimes a witch or wizards magical signature is so completely incompatible with another that they repel one another like... magnets. You know how when they're opposite poles the magnets stick together but the same pole repel and you can't even push them together? It's like that."
"But then, I wouldn't be able to touch her at all? I've touched Cho... her arm, I'm pretty sure I've touched her arm," Harry said in confusion.
"Well, that's the very interesting thing about it, you see, our magic is quite sedate most of the time unless we're using it to cast or when we're very agitated- that's where spontaneous uncontrolled magic comes from," Hermione said, spreading her hands as she became more engaged in the subject, "and when you're about to do something like... kiss someone you really fancy-"
Harry flushed.
"-your heart rate picks up and you get nervous and you magic gets agitated. Our bodies are really quite bad at telling the difference between good, excited nervous and more life-threatening bad nervous. It only really affects you when you're really close to someone as well, so it's not really that noticeable a majority of the time."
"Oh..." Harry said blankly.
"Don't worry," Ron reassured him, "It's really rare to be that repelled."
Hermione nodded in agreement, "It's like- in a sample size of- of a thousand people, you'll be slightly repelled from four or five and strongly repelled by only one, at the most."
Ron added, "And it's not all bad. If you find someone you're a really good match with it's like- like amazing, the best thing ever. True love and all. My mum and dad are like that."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Hermione said.
Ron nodded, "Yeah, there'll be others."
Harry nodded too, trying not to dwell on what had happened.
When he tried to kiss Ginny in the common room, with everyone cheering and celebrating, they got so close he could feel the warmth of her breath ghost across his lips. It was brief and no one saw that they really hadn't kissed. Ginny tried to hide her confusion and disappointment but Harry could see it all the same. It probably looked quite like his own expression.
They tried again in private later but it was even worse, likely because they were more nervous. Ginny gave him a sad smile and left to be alone. He heard that she spent the next couple days in the Ravenclaw tower with Luna. Ron was mad at him for breaking his sister's heart and Harry didn't have it in him to explain what had happened.
He felt like it was his fault and he was entirely certain he had the worst luck in the world.
After the war was a time for new beginnings. Life could only get better and Harry was certain his magical signature being incompatible with people was because of Voldemort's horcrux being inside him. Or perhaps it was a case of not kissing enough people.
When he and all his friends went out drinking and having fun that summer he made a point, once he had enough drunken courage, to try and kiss someone. It didn't even matter who. He just wanted to find someone he didn't bounce off of like he was wearing a fish tank on his head. Each time he tried, it got a little easier to try again. Until it got to the point where he'd try to kiss everyone in the bar who'd let him.
He got close a few times, like he had with Ginny, but for most he would feel the pushback before he was even six inches off. Luna kissed his cheek once when she caught him off guard, it was a very sweet friendly kiss. Harry couldn't stop thinking about how the first and maybe only time he'd ever felt lips on his skin was from a friend.
He went back to Hogwarts with Hermione and Ron to finish his schooling, for their "eighth year". McGonagall was very big on inter-house unity. All the teachers would lavishly praise and give house points to anyone so much pausing to pick up a dropped parchment for a classmate from another house. The effort resulted in much embarrassment all around. There was no bullying, but most houses kept to themselves. Perhaps, that was why McGonagall allowed all the eighth and seventh years have a party.
Like the good teenagers they were, there was a great deal of illicit alcohol involved and very little self-control.
Harry threw back the last of his fire whisky and thumped the glass down on the table, yelling above the music from the wireless, "I'm gonna kiss everyone in this room!"
A drunken cheer greeted his declaration. A girl sitting behind him startled to her feet, her drink spilling over her fingers as she stepped closer, "Me first," she smiled shyly.
She had been flirting rather desperately with Harry all night and though he wasn't interested in the slightest he leaned down. She twitched forward eagerly and was just as quickly pushed back quite a distance from Harry. Apparently, she was a particularly bad match.
He didn't laugh in her face but it was a near thing. He was just drunk enough that awfulness of his situation was fucking hilarious.
"Sorry," Harry grinned and turned to the person sitting beside her and then the next person and the next. One miss after another as the music and chatter grew louder and the night wore on. He teased Dean and Seamus into a kiss, Dean almost managed it, close enough Harry could feel his laughter before he pulled away to give Seamus a proper kiss. He did not kiss Ron or Hermione, it would've been like kissing a sibling and he wasn't interested in having creepy nightmares about it for the rest of his life. Everyone else he approached humoured him and gave Harry a go at a quick kiss.
He was fast running out of people to try- and fail -to kiss when he found himself at the back corner of the room, the large couch pushed against the wall had been taken over by the only three Slytherin's who came back to finish up their schooling, Blaise, Pansy and, Draco Malfoy. They were relaxed, somewhat sprawled over one another with a bottle of fire whisky to pass between them. They weren't nearly as relaxed when they noticed Harry staring at them, the lot of them stiffening like a group of alley cats arching their backs and hissing.
"What?" Pansy lifted her nose with a sniff, "We've a right to be here, same as you."
"You need something, Potter?" Blaise asked.
Harry blinked, "A kiss," he said. Once upon a time, the prospect of kissing a trio of Slytherins would have been far too nerve-wracking but not anymore. The thing about trying to kiss about a hundred odd people was that the whole procedure rather lost its magic, so to speak.
They all stared at him blankly.
"I did say I was going to kiss everyone in the room," Harry made a show of looking around, "You're here."
"You've got to be kidding," Pansy said, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.
Blaise laughed, pushing himself to his feet and out of the tangle of his friend's legs without somehow tripping himself up, "Me first, Boy-wonder," Blaise said with the smug challenging sort of look that seemed to be calling out Harry's bluff.
Harry returned the look, "Get on with it then."
A flicker of hesitation crossed Blaise's face before he managed to mask it, crossing the distance between them.
Harry tried to stay calm. The whole kissing thing seemed to work out better if he could but it was pointless since Blaise hardly had a go at all. As soon as the nudging pressure began to make itself known he backed off with a smirk.
Blaise dropped back onto the couch with a thud, "Well, that was anticlimactic."
Pansy looked from Harry to Blaise curiously and then popped up, approaching Harry with a tilt to her head that brought to Harry's mind the alley cat image again. She went up on tiptoes and Harry leaned down as she tried to kiss the corner of his mouth. Harry was a little surprised how close she got, about a half an inch away.
Her eyes widened as she pulled back. She exchanged a questioning look with Blaise that turned into a knowing one.
She looked back at Harry with an appraising smile, "I see," she said to herself as she slowly backed away from him.
When the back of her legs hit the couch she stopped and looked over at Draco who was sitting stiffly in the centre. His arms were wrapped nervously around his waist, one hand clutching the neck of the whisky bottle as he scowled up at Harry.
"Your turn, Draco," Pansy said. When he didn't move immediately she gave his ankle a half-hearted kick, "Come on."
Blaise leaned over, grabbing hold of his shoulder and pushing him forward, "Give it a go, my friend. It's a laugh."
Draco looked over at Blaise furiously. A flush was rising in his cheeks as he knocked Blaise's hand away and stood unsteadily, pushing the bottle into Pansy's chest with a bit too much force. She huffed and turned up her nose, flopping back onto the couch next to Blaise who leaned over to whisper in her ear.
Draco wavered on his feet, his eyes looking like he was having trouble focusing. He was completely and utterly pissed.
Harry watched with growing apprehension. Draco was flushed, his hair gone a little wild, even his clothes were slightly rumpled and there was a grim determination in his eyes. He took a deep breath, absent-mindedly pulling his shirt straight and smoothing his hair back with one hand, though it didn't stay.
A prickle started on the back of Harry's neck, the hair on his arms standing up. His heart rate began to pick up as the shivery tension raced through Harry with every step Draco got closer. He had felt this before when they fought, this thundering, shivery pulling feeling. Harry had always thought it was the adrenaline from being angry and from fighting but...
Draco stopped a foot away and then almost swayed forward until they were almost touching. Harry saw close his eyes briefly as if gathering himself, a shiver made his shoulder twitch. When he opened his eyes again Harry felt transfixed by the flat grey colour. Harry's hand moving without his permission, pressing against the flat planes of Draco's chest. Harry felt another shiver go through Draco, stronger than the last, his mouth falling open in a silent gasp, his pupils darkening.
Harry leaned forward, almost haltingly. He kept expecting the pressure to start, to push him back, but instead, it almost felt like he was being tugged closer, and there was almost a static hum in the air, prickling along his skin. He reached up, brushing his fingers lightly on Draco's chin, too nervous to actually cup his cheek. Draco tilted his head and Harry felt his breath ghost across his lips, felthis lips, soft and careful and shivering just like Harry was and-
"ENOUGH!" Headmistress McGonagall's voice cut through the party like a blade of ice. "This party is over."
Harry and Draco startled away from each other. The music was shut off and the room slowly took on the deathly calm of those who know they are completely and utterly hosed.
McGonagall's eyes narrowed as she looked over the room, "There will be no more parties, for the rest of the year," she said coldly, "Hogsmeade weekends are canceled and everyone here, including eighth years, are to remain on the castle grounds for the next three months-" there was a chorus of groans that was abruptly cut off with a single look, "-All of your curfews are now at eight pm, all of you." There were no attempts to complain this time, simply an overwhelming and spreading air of despair. "If you are going to act like children, you will be treated like children. If any of you are found with alcohol on school grounds again, you will be suspended," she pursed her lips in disappointment, "I do hope you will learn from this. Now go to your dorms."
The students swayed and shuffled out of the room with their heads low to avoid eye contact.
Harry hadn't moved. He wasn't entirely aware of what was happening until a hand firmly took him by the upper arm.
"Mr Potter." McGonagall said, some of the sternness leaving her voice, "Are you well? Do you need to go to the hospital wing?"
"I- What-?" Harry asked blankly, his mind entirely consumed by a single kiss, so brief there was part of his mind that wasn't entity certain it had happened.
McGonagall frowned, her question changing to an order, "Go to the hospital wing. Have Poppy look you over."
"The hospital wing," Harry repeated.
The room was entirely empty. Harry didn't know when that had happened.
"You're trembling Harry," McGonagall said, looking Harry over with concern, "I'll walk you there myself."