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Ginny wakes up on her birthday to an armful of Harry and something squishy sliding down her stomach. She opens her eyes and blinks at Harry staring back at her, eyes looking particularly green this morning, and that same sticky substance on his cheek.
“I’m twenty-two,” she says loudly, affirmatively, which is then followed by a, “how the hell am I twenty-two?”
“You aged a whole year,” Harry answers helpfully and then he ducks in and kisses her, one of those deep kisses that reaches right the way down to her toes. “Try being twenty-three,” he says when he pulls away, only to press kisses along her neck and down her chest. Twenty-two’s been okay so far, she guesses, as she pulls Harry closer.
Then she remembers the stickiness and the squishiness and she wriggles away. She raises an eyebrow in question; Harry answers with a shrug and then he leans back in, smudging kisses across her cheek until he reaches her mouth.
“I made a cake,” he mumbles against her lips.
Ginny grabs his head, wrenches it back. “Babe. You made me a cake?”
Now he’s grinning, so pleased with himself. “It’s a mess,” he says proudly.
“I bet it tastes good.” Merlin, Ginny wants cake like she’s never wanted anything before. It’s the middle of summer, the middle of a heatwave, but she’s craving the sweetness of icing and crumbs flying everywhere. “Go get me a bit, will you?”
“Don’t you want your present first?” Harry stretches out on top of Ginny and then he’s pulling away, rising up onto his knees so he towers above her. It’s not a bad view — Ginny stays where she is.
She cants her head, pretends to think. “Food, then presents.”
Harry sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair. “Okay, fine,” like this is the worst thing he’s ever had to do. He summons the cake wandlessly, what power he has, throws a bit at her face.
“Don’t be huffy with me,” Ginny pouts, dropping bits of cake on the bed. “It’s my birthday.”
Harry’s hands are trailing over her stomach, dancing across the hem of her underwear. He’s impatient, endearingly so. Ginny’s in one of those moods where everything he does is endearing. A fortnight ago when it was his birthday she had started the morning in exactly the same way. What kind and considerate partners they are. “Eat your cake.”
“This is the best cake I’ve ever had,” Ginny promises, licking a bit of icing off her pinkie. The sweetness cloys at her teeth — she goes for more.
“Better than your mum’s?” Harry asks, eyebrow hiked up in scepticism.
“Well, my mum wasn’t straddling me naked,” Ginny points out, wriggling her hips to knock Harry’s knee. “It nudges you ahead ever so slightly.”
“You’re telling me if I’d made those burgers starkers you’d have kept yours in your mouth instead of feeding it to the gnomes?”
“That’s pushing it,” Ginny counters. She chews the last of her slice, dodges the next chunk Harry aims her way. “Now c’mere and give me my present.”
“So bloody presumptuous,” Harry mutters even as he smirks and leans in, a continuation of the earlier kiss as though the last ten minutes never happened. He’s smiling against her lips, the curve growing when Ginny wriggles some more until her legs are around his waist and their bodies are flush.
She runs a hand through his hair, catching in the knots, and then she pulls back, gathers her features into a cocky expression. "A whole year older," she says. "That deserves some celebration, don't you think?"
Harry's laughing when he kisses her and they're always the best kisses, the ones that make Ginny feel like she's floating to the moon, their happiness smashing together and creating something even bigger. A whole year older and Ginny thinks this might be the happiest one yet, if such titles are possible. As though to prove this thought true, Harry's mouth moves lower, his hands beating him there, and then he's nudging her underwear down her thighs and Ginny chews at her lip, tilts up her hips, and thinks that so far twenty-two has been bloody fantastic.