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“Bloody—!” The rest of Harry’s exclamation was lost to a laugh as Ginny soared past him, her own bright delight curling around him along with the gust of her motion, sending his hair ruffling around.
“Keep your head up, Potter!” she called over her shoulder, white teeth flashing amid streaming auburn hair.
Harry huffed to himself, heart beating hard from both the physical exertion and the emotional joy of flying with her. It was a warm afternoon and the English countryside practically glowed with the coming of autumn, the leaves of the wood to their left gleaming green and gold and red, fluttering in the light breeze and catching the sun's lingering rays. It was a perfect day, made ever more so by her presence in it.
He shot forward after her, making up the distance quickly in his double eagerness to fly alongside her and to ensure he beat her to their destination. He had a plan, damnit, and he was determined that she would not spoil it for herself.
He was shoulder-to-shoulder with her moments later, waggling his eyebrows at her and deftly swerving just out of reach when she tried to shoulder-check him.
“Merlin, witch,” he chided. “We’re twenty feet up!”
“Oh please.” She backed off, slowing. He pulled up, matching her speed. “The number of times you’ve fallen off your broom, you should have mastered a wandless Arresto momentum by now. It’s honestly your fault if you hurt yourself at this point.”
“Hey!” he protested, laughing. “Those were all perfectly legitimate reasons to fall off my broom.”
She clucked her tongue disparagingly, eyes sparkling. “Rogue Bludgers? Dementors? Your weird, almost homoerotic competitions with Draco? Please.”
Harry wrinkled his nose. “Don’t say homoerotic and Draco in the same sentence.”
“Fine, fine. Although you should know that Hermione agrees with me.”
Harry spluttered. “About her husband?”
Ginny rolled her eyes but she was grinning. “You boys. Draco always has a snit when Hermione brings it up too, apparently, and then likes to prove how very heteroerotic he can be. Needless to say, she goads him about it quite often.”
“Ginny,” Harry groaned. “C’mon.”
She laughed again and the bright sound of it pulled his heart to hers and his lips up, as it always did. Her expression shifted to curiosity as she caught sight of something ahead, eyes narrowing to inspect it. “What’s that?”
Harry had lost track of their progress and realized with a jolt that they’d nearly arrived. He scrambled to get his thoughts in order.
“Oh! This is— Stop for a second?”
They drew up to a stationary hover over the picnic he’d set up an hour ago, the red blanket an homage to their past House, and their current love, and what he secretly hoped would be a future gaggle of red-headed babies. He watched her eyes scan it quickly and then cut over to meet his, wide and glinting amber in the afternoon sun.
“Harry—” she began, tone almost accusatory, but he held up a hand.
“Before you say anything, can I just—?” He cleared his throat. “I have some…thoughts prepared.”
She rolled her lips in, pressing them together and nodding.
“Right. Thanks.” He adjusted his grip on his broom, using his other hand to push his glasses up his nose in the tic he knew was a dead-giveaway for nerves. But sod it — she knew everything about him anyway; he didn’t care if she saw his nerves. “Well first, obviously, I love you. I’m in love with you—as you know.”
Her lips had begun to go up at the edges; she pressed them together more firmly. He breathed a soft laugh, shaking his head at her.
“And while I’m well aware you don’t need a man to be complete, I think—erm, I know, that I need you. To be. Complete, that is.” He huffed a breath at himself for the clunky way he was delivering what had been quite beautiful when he’d jotted it down at his desk. But she was looking at him with open affection and so he barreled on. “You’ve been there for me through it all and, frankly, my life would be empty without you in it.”
He paused to heave in a breath, his heart thudding in his chest at the upcoming question, even though he was fairly certain that her response would be positive. “Ginny. Erm, Ginevra. Will you do me the unbelievable honor of marrying me?”
“Yes,” she said immediately and then raised an index finger. “But never call me Ginevra again.”
His exhale was part relief and part laugh. He took a moment to let her unquestioning yes seep in, falling in love with her just a little bit more. “I promise. Never again.”
She drifted closer, raising her face to his, and he pressed his forehead to hers to a quiet moment before tilting his chin and kissing her.
“I love you,” she whispered against his lips, and he kissed her a bit more passionately before regretfully drawing back. There was a list of things they’d deemed unsafe while airborne and unfortunately, kissing was on it.
She drew in a full inhale, eyes sparkling, and then twisted her mouth to the side. “I’m sorry for talking about your former crush on Draco right before you planned to propose to me,” she said and he snorted.
“Yeah, well, you could just not talk about it at all, to be safe,” he responded dryly.
“Not going to prove how much it isn’t true?” she asked sweetly.
He fixed her with a knowing look. “You know exactly how untrue it is. Don’t you, Gin?”
She licked her lips reflexively, eyes heating. “Mm. I certainly do.”
He could have left it there, but the moment had stirred him up – both the relief of having finally asked and of her answer – and he felt hyper aware of her: her gaze on him, her loose, confident grip on her broom, the way he could catch the scent of her shampoo and just the lightest touch of perspiration on the wind.
And so he pitched his voice low and asked, “Are you sure? I’d be happy to remind you.”
Her brows went up. “What, up here?”
He drifted closer into her space, knee bumping hers, and her eyes flared heatedly.
“Yes,” he said. “Well, down there.”
He raised a hand to brush a silky strand of hair off her temple, fingers dragging down her cheek and then slipping around the back of her neck. He could feel what the wind had done to her hair, the way it was just-barely tangled, and he worked his fingers into the strands, wanting to contribute to her dishevelment.
“What do you say?” he asked, rubbing his fingers against the base of her skull in the way he knew made her melt before slipping his hand down to rest lightly along her neck. “Race you to the ground?”
She bit the corner of her lip as his thumb stroked along her pulse. “You think you can catch me?”
He felt her pulse thudding, strong and quick, below his hand. It made his body respond in kind, the promise of a chase — of a catch — always the most thrilling thing in the world to him.
“Yeah,” he said, voice hushed but confident. “I do.”
“Do your best then, Potter,” she quipped and with a wink, shot off like a missile, leaving his hand grasping empty air.
He drew in a quick inhale, nostrils flaring, as he let her get a head start; he didn’t like an easy quarry, after all. She was a hundred meters ahead by the time he kicked off, zipping through the air toward her with the single-minded focus he reserved for golden things. She cast a look back, checking his location, and then laughed and banked hard to the left, shooting into the forest.
He shifted his trajectory instantly, weaving through the trees with the intent to cut her off. He could see flashes of her through the trunks and branches as he gained on her: auburn hair, the pretty blue of her jumper, cream-colored cheeks.
He pulled up, ascending until he was just below the branches of the tall trees, maintaining his speed and unafraid of anything except what might happen if she got away. It filled his blood with a heavy, purposeful pulse and he leaned into the power of it, as he always did.
He shot out into a clearing and spotted her halfway across it, several meters below him. He leaned forward, broom pointing right at her, and accelerated. She looked up over her shoulder and let out a little shriek at his rapid approach. She tried to dart out of the way but he was already on her, his momentum pushing them both the rest of the way to the ground.
He abandoned his broom when they had only a handful of feet between them and the soft forest floor, diving for her with arms around her torso and then turning mid-air so that his back hit the ground, cushioning her against his chest. She was laughing again, delighted, her hair falling around them and tickling his face. They slid for a few feet and then he rolled them, pressing her to the ground with hands around her wrists and straddling her thighs, pinning her.
“I win,” he told her, panting.
She looked wild under him, eyes bright and glowing, cheeks flushed. She was so gorgeous he couldn’t breathe, and not only from the physical exertion.
“Only because I let you.”
“Wanted to be caught, did you?” He squeezed her wrists again then stroked the insides with his thumbs, watching how it made her pupils dilate.
“What will you do with me now?” she asked, eyes fixed on his.
He dipped down to run his nose along hers, breathing in the intoxicating scent of home and the outdoors and her. “Make you mine.”
“I always have been,” she whispered.
He kissed her, deep and searching, and she met him stroke for stroke. He let go of her wrists in favor of cupping her jaw, holding her — precious, so precious — in his hands. She sent hers into his hair and then down his shoulders, clinging to him.
It didn’t take much for her to get him hard – sometimes just a heated look across the room was enough, for the memory it inspired; the way it hinted at the contents of her thoughts – and so he had to laugh a little at her chirp of surprise when he ground himself between her legs, as if him chasing and catching her hadn’t been enough to get him halfway to the edge already.
“Want to Apparate to the blanket?” he offered, kissing the corner of her mouth and the flicker of her smile.
She hummed in the negative, turning her mouth to fit hers against his properly, her tongue insistent at the seam of his lips. He let her in, pulling her thigh up around his waist and then holding her there at the knee. She tightened her leg around him, lifting her hips up against his and he obliged her with another firm grind before rolling them, pulling her up on top of him.
“If we’re doing it here then it should be me getting dirty on the forest floor,” he said.
She cocked a brow. “That sounds very noble of you, but I think you just want me to ride you.”
He grinned. “You are quite good at it.”
“Don’t you sell me short, Harry Potter.” She leaned down, her hair draping around them so that all he saw was her. “I’m good at everything.”
She really was.
In the bedroom, of course – and fuck, that was putting it lightly – but in so many more ways than that. Like the way she could always sense when he needed her to step in and deflect a conversation when a well-meaning citizen accosted him in Diagon; or the way she always pushed him into the kitchen at the Burrow, letting him be mothered by Molly in the way he’d always needed and Ginny never resented; or the way she encouraged him in everything, especially the things he worried made him weird or different, never tiring of proving to him how accepted he was.
And through all the years growing up and growing together, he’d figured out all the ways to be good at everything for her, too.
She was tough, by nature and by nurture; a natural-born leader and a hell of an opponent in the many fields she offered herself up as a combatant: the Auror bullpen, the Quidditch pitch, the family dinner table. He’d learned that standing off against Ginny Weasley was not for the faint hearted nor the easily vanquished.
He prided himself in being neither.
And now, lying under her in the hushed clearing, the sun warm and the breeze cool, he thought of his favorite little nuance of Ginny’s gorgeously tangled psyche, and so hummed an unconvinced sound.
“Everything? Hmm, no. You’re not good at following rules. Not at all.”
Her eyes flashed, the brown darker than usual behind the veil of her hair and from his provoking comment, and the suggestion it held. “I’m good at following rules that make sense,” she countered.
He quirked a brow. “Care to prove it?”
She circled her hips over him meaningfully. “Do you really think you’re in any position to be giving orders?”
“Yes,” he said, voice low and uncompromising. “I caught you. And you know if I really wanted to, I’d have you on your back. You’re only up there because I’m letting you.”
She licked her lips, hips shifting again without conscious thought this time. He ran his hands up her thighs and over her hips, banding them around her slim waist and holding her still.
“Isn’t that right, Ginny?” he asked, tone expectant.
She bit the corner of her lip, considering him for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes.”
He hummed a low sound of approval and watched her shiver. “So, then. Do you think you can be a good girl and do as I say?”
“Here?” she asked, brows lifting. “Out in the woods?”
He twisted his mouth to the side in an exaggerated expression of dissatisfaction. “Not a good start, Gin.”
She opened her mouth to defend herself or push back and he raised his brows expectantly, daring her to. Sometimes she liked to fight him on it – verbally or physically, he loved both sorts – and sometimes she gave in sweetly, putting herself in his hands with a trust he cherished more than anything.
It seemed today she was feeling sweet.
“Okay,” she murmured, eyes heavy on his. “Tell me what I should do.”
He found he wasn’t above a little goading. “Oh? Just like that?”
“You already caught me,” she reminded him.
He smirked. “Ah. Feeling captive?”
“Captivated.” She mirrored the cheeky slant of his lips.
“Good,” he said, voice warm. And then he hardened his tone. “Grind on me.”
She licked her lips, rocking on him without hesitation. He kept his hands on her waist but let her control the movement, not because it gave her the power but because it made her conscious that she was choosing to obey.
“Mm.” He let her make a few passes then told her, “Faster.”
He knew her thighs were likely tired from flying but she didn’t balk, picking up the pace. He gave her a little groan of pleasure and watched it turn her cheeks pink, pupils expanding.
“Sit up,” he murmured and she did, situating herself right over the bulge in his trousers. “Show me.”
She didn’t need clarification. She reached a hand back to brace on his knee and then undulated on him, the motion smooth and lithe. He knew how she looked when she did it naked, the cut lines of her torso flexing; the graceful slide of her cunt over his cock; her perky breasts, pink-tipped and lovely, barely moving with the fluidity of her body.
“Sexy,” he purred and she bit her lip. “So fucking sexy.”
She muffled a soft sound of pleasure behind her lips at his praise and the building friction between them.
He let her grind until he was sure her muscles were burning and then halted her. “Stand up.”
She planted her hands on his chest for support and stood, a foot on either side of his hips.
“Take your trousers off,” he told her, tucking an arm behind his head in a pose he knew drove her wild. “And then undo mine.”
Her hands were quick on her fly, the denim shoved down and kicked aside without fanfare, her gaze riveted on his body, eyes scanning it with a hunger he found extremely flattering, given how well she knew his own form already.
She was a good girl, really, he thought, when she stayed standing to undo his trousers, bending at the waist to work his belt open rather than going beyond his instruction and kneeling. It made him so hard, he ached.
“Take me out,” he instructed, when she’d gotten his trousers open.
She wet her lips as she tugged his boxers down, tucking the waistband below his balls. His cock was thick and red, angry for being rubbed so fervently inside his pants without the reward of being made to come. His eyelids slid to half-mast at the way she admired it, unashamed of her desire.
“On your knees now,” he allowed and pressed his lips tightly together when she dropped down instantly between his thighs, gaze still distinctly south.
“Go ahead,” he said, “Get yourself ready for it.”
Her eyes flicked up, arousal and chastisement swirling in equal measure. She always came faster when she’d sucked him first, something she’d lamented as being her most unfeminist attribute but also something she exercised with delight, happy to reap the rewards of working them both up.
He held her gaze, the edge of his mouth lifting as she silently berated him for knowing her so well. He’d never apologize for it, not when she gave it twice as good as she got.
“However I like?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Until I tell you otherwise,” he agreed.
She took him halfway within seconds, her mouth warm and wet, tongue stroking sweetly across the vein that throbbed down the underside.
“Fucking– ” He cut himself off but felt her responding moan buzzing around him nonetheless. It was hard to keep the upper hand with her sometimes but damnit if he didn’t love to try. “All the way now. Let me feel you swallow.”
She did as he asked, her throat spasming around him as she fought a cough and then tightening as she swallowed.
She’d once gotten him so worked up that he’d come just from that, a surprise to both of them, and the memory of it was etched so eternally in his blood that very first clutch of her throat always sent an echo of that sudden bolt of pleasure reverberating through him.
She’d never forgotten it either and when her eyes touched his in a quick flash, full of humor and half-sarcastic, half-real pride when he lasted through a second swallow, he felt so loved.
She devoted herself back to driving them both mad, eyes sliding shut as she savored whatever it was that bringing him pleasure like this did to her. He let her get him closer than was likely wise before he hummed a warning sound.
“Enough,” he said. “Come sit again.”
She released him with a little parting suckle on the head, tongue flicking teasingly at his frenulum before letting him go to thwack against his pelvis. She climbed onto his lap, situating herself over him again, her pretty light green knickers the only thing between them. He considered making her rub them over him but that was a quick ticket toward the point of no return, so instead he let the edge slowly fade to somewhere manageable and tilted his chin up at her.
“Pull them to the side and let me feel how wet you got yourself sucking my cock.”
She was breathless, lips wet and plush, but she complied right away, hooking a slender forefinger around the gusset then employing a second to help hold it aside. Her other hand nudged his cock to point toward his navel and then she lowered herself over on him, performing a small glide forward along the underside of his cock and then another, stronger one once she’d begun to slick the way.
“You’re amazing,” he mumbled. “Merlin, you really love it, don’t you?”
The little hitch in her motion indicated that she did, her breathy little moan emphasizing it further. He let her grind on him until she began to lose her finesse, her motions jerky and shuddery as her pleasure mounted.
“Put me inside you.” As she eagerly began to do it, he added, “Slowly.”
Her motion slowed but didn’t stop as she aligned him and then lowered down, sinking the head of his cock inside her.
“Now wait,” he said, even though everything inside him was screaming to thrust up and bury himself deep.
“Harry–” she whined, plaintive, and her need fueled his resolve.
“Wait,” he repeated sternly, and she whimpered through close-pressed lips but obeyed.
He flexed his hips under her, feeling the thick ridge of his crown rubbing just inside, right where he knew she was very sensitive. Her cheeks were a shiny rose and he knew if she was naked, he’d see that pretty pink spilling across her chest, too.
“Okay,” he murmured. “Have a little more.”
Her nails dug into his rucked-up shirt as she sank halfway. He felt her thighs tense around his hips as she resisted the satisfaction of taking him fully. His praise was instinctive.
“Fuck, what a good girl,” he groaned. “Listening so well.”
She breathed a strained sound, part laugh and part whine. “Please.”
“Touch your clit.”
Her hand flew to it, sweeping through the wetness that had begun to gather around his cock and then circling. He felt her walls flutter around him and had to tighten his jaw until his ears began to ring to maintain his composure.
“Take it all,” he said, when he could. “And then grind on me again.”
“Fuck, Harry,” she gasped, dropping down until she was flush with him and immediately rocking her hips forward. “Oh god.”
“Faster.”
He could feel his orgasm sparking down his spine, the warmth of it surging in his pelvis and when she rocked on him urgently, her hand pinned between their bodies as she rubbed her clit against it, he groaned. Her walls clenched in response, her breath leaving her in little pants.
“You should see yourself,” he murmured, carding his fingers into his hair and tugging roughly to distract himself away from the edge he was rapidly approaching. “Fucking unbelievable. You look so good up there, Gin. You fuck me so well.”
Her eyes were glassy with arousal, her mouth ajar; she was close. He wanted her to topple.
He sighed. “Such a shame you’re not allowed to come.”
Her eyes flared and he loved her so much in that moment – he loved her in all moments but especially those when she really let her true self shine – so when her hand came down around his throat, her hold confident and well-practiced, he could do nothing but whine and throb.
“Watch me,” she hissed and he felt her thumb and middle finger squeeze around his throat at the same time her cunt squeezed around his cock. “Fucking watch me come on you. Feel it.”
He groaned, the sound strained and deliriously happy, as she dragged his own orgasm from him, her soft pants of pleasure and the comforting clutch of her around him as she rode out her own climax never failing to break him apart.
She slid her hand from his throat to the ground beside his head, falling forward and catching her breath. Her eyes practically glowed as they met his, close enough that he could make them out even with his glasses askew.
“Merlin,” she breathed, and then started laughing. “What a proposal story this will be!”
He snorted. “I think I’d rather not tell your parents that after asking you to marry me, I proceeded to fuck you in a forest.”
“Ordered me to fuck you in a forest, you mean,” she corrected with a salacious waggle of her brows.
“Mm. Even better.” He nuzzled his nose against hers then tilted his chin up to kiss her sweetly. “To be fair, I did half expect a shag as a result of proposing but perhaps something more…soft and loving.”
She scoffed. “What’s more loving than what we just did?”
He paused at that, brushing her hair back with a gentle fingertip, his entire being utterly devoted to her. “Nothing,” he murmured, after a moment.
She pushed his glasses up for him and he saw her clearly then, every last freckle.
“We can just tell them you surprised me with a picnic and leave the rest for us.”
He grinned. “Perfect.”
She settled herself down on top of him, his cock slowly softening inside her as she rested her cheek on his shoulder, arms sliding under his neck. Her mention of the picnic reminded him of a rather key piece to the proposal.
“I have a ring,” he said. “In the picnic basket.”
“Later,” she murmured, nuzzling her nose against his throat. “I have the rest of my life to wear it. I’m not in a rush to get up just yet.”
He kissed her hair, wrapping his arms around her to hold her close, breathing in the fresh forest air and the scent of her shampoo and just the lightest touch of sex on the wind.
“Later,” he agreed quietly.
He wasn't in a rush, either, because she was right.
They had the rest of their lives.